Liberty Belle: The Avengers Assemble
by Elphaba818
Summary: After being frozen in ice for almost seventy years, Jamie has awakened in the modern world alongside Steve, but she's not okay. Her memories from her past haunt her, and she blames herself for what happened to Trent. Can being Liberty Belle again and helping save the world from Loki as the youngest Avenger help her, or just make things worse for her fractured mentality?
1. The Girl Out of Time

**I'm back, people! Elphaba818 is back with the second installment to the Liberty Belle series:**

 **Liberty Belle: The Avengers Assemble**

 **To any readers who found this just in the Avengers fanfiction section but did not read the first book, please go to my profile and find the first story in the series, Liberty Belle: The First Avenger. This fanfiction will not make sense to you if you do not read that first.**

 **To all my old readers, welcome back! I'm really excited to be writing this story finally! I have a _lot_ planned for Jamie in this adaptation of the first Avengers movie. You're all in for one hell of a wild ride! You're going to be blown away in what happens in this! In this rendition, Jamie finally meets the rest of the Avengers! It's truly exciting! I can't wait until later chapters! It's going to be epic!**

 **Normally, this is part in my AU notes where I thank the people who reviewed the previous chapters, but as this is only the first chapter, I can't do that. So instead, I'm going to thank the following people who reviewed the last chapter of the first Liberty Belle story:**

 **\- storiesarebetter**

 **\- DragonessGem (My newest big fan of this series and good friend)**

 **\- ZabuzasGirl (My biggest fan of this series and one of my oldest friends here on FanFiction)**

 **I'd also like to make a special shout out to the user ML143. She's making a coverart for the first Liberty Belle story, but has been delayed from sending it to me due to computer issues. I want you to know that when I do finally get the picture to that and I like it, if you might also be willing to draw a picture of Jamie with the rest of the Avengers for this, too! Please PM later if you're interested in doing this, because if you are, there's something I'll need you to include in the drawing.**

 **Please note: I do not own Captain America or the Avengers. Those films are both exclusive to Marvel Studios and Comics. All I own is the idea of Jamie and Liberty Belle. This is a fanfic for fun, not profit.**

 **Please, read and review when you're finished!**

 **Happy Reading!**

* * *

 **Chapter One: The Girl Out of Time**

 _The tiny office room inside the S.H.I.E.L.D. government building was a somewhat normal office for modern-day standards. There were a couple of large, fluorescent ceiling lights shining overhead, a bookcase stuffed to the brim with books in the back corner, and a sleek glass-top desk up against the large windows that made up the entire back wall. On top of the desk, there were a bunch of beige files scattered across it, some open and some not, and a black laptop that was currently turned on, and it was revealing information that was relevant to the world's first superhero team: Captain America and Liberty Belle._

 _The Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Nick Fury, was a rather unusual man. After all, not many men, African-American or otherwise, tend to favor wearing all black as often as possible as well as a black trench coat and black eye-patch to cover up the lack of sight in their left eye instead of just wearing glasses. He was currently sitting behind the desk in the office, his hands folded together on top of its surface as he stared solemnly between the two other people in the room with him, sitting in the two padded armchairs in front of his desk._

 _The first one was a rather tall young man in his mid-twenties. Upon first glance, he was very athletic, what with his rather strong, raging muscles that could clearly be seen despite the white t-shirt he was currently wearing. He had sandy blonde hair and deep blue eyes, though they were currently shifting back and forth between being fixed on the computer on Fury's desk, as he had never seen anything quite like it before in his life, resting on Fury himself sitting directly in front of him, or would glance every so often to the side to look at the person sitting in the armchair next to him._

 _The other person in the room was a rather unusual visitor to Fury's office. Normally, Fury had adults of all ages come in to speak with him, but he had never had a small child in his office before. There was a first time for everything, though._

 _The child was a little girl, with wavy dark brown hair and dark brown eyes. She was of average height for just being a couple years short of being a pre-teen, and like the blonde man sitting next to her, it was easy to tell on first glance that she was very strong. The parts of her arms that were exposed from the t-shirt she was wearing were lean and strong from pure muscle, and if someone were to lift her shirt just slightly, they'd see that her stomach possessed no baby fat, but was flat and lean as well. The child was clutching the hand of the blonde man very tightly with one of her hands, and the other was grasping tightly to the circular part of a silver pocket watch hanging around her neck on a silver chain. Her eyes were not looking around like's the man's was, but was just staring sadly down at her lap._

 _The two people sitting in front of him were Captain Steven Grant Rogers and Lieutenant Jamie Elizabeth Harper. Back in World War II, they'd been known as the present-day adult super-soldier, Captain America, and his sidekick, the child super-soldier of the future, Liberty Belle, and were responsible of bringing about the end of the Nazi deep-science division known as Hydra, as they were the one's to kill the leader of Hydra, Johann Schmidt, otherwise known as the Red Skull. The world had believed that they both had died when they crashed a Hydra plane called the Valkyrie that been loaded with bombs that would have brought America to the brink of destruction into the ocean, but they'd been recently been discovered along with the wreckage of the plane in an ice field in Greenland._

 _Steve Rogers and Jamie Harper had both been presumed dead back in 1945, but really, they'd been frozen in ice for almost seventy years, and had just been awakened from their cryogenic sleep upon being rediscovered in the modern era in the year 2012._

 _The two super-soldiers had awakened from their almost seventy year slumber less than two hours ago. Fury had presumed that it'd be easier to break the news to the two of them slowly, and had arranged for Steve and Jamie to wake up in a stimulated 1940's environment, and for a S.H.I.E.L.D. woman to impersonate a young officer of the SSR to help them believe they were in a safe place before she was to tell them all about their long sleep in the frozen tundra. Unfortunately, both of the super-soldiers had been able to realize that they were being tricked, and had assumed that Hydra agents had somehow kidnapped them. They took off out of the building, and had been in for a real shock when they saw the outside world of modern-day New York City. Fury himself had to drive up to them during their escape and had been forced to tell them the news rather bluntly._

 _Upon learning this news, Steve and Jamie hadn't said much since then, but they did allow Fury and his team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to escort them back to headquarters so Fury could give them a more in-depth summary of what had happened to them and how they were even still alive._

" _I'm sure this all must seem like a shock to you both, but I'm willing to answer any questions either of you may have," Fury said. Jamie didn't look at the dark-skinned man sitting in front of her, but Steve immediately gave him his full attention. His protégé may not want to listen to what was being said, so he'd have to listen for both of them._

 _He was just thankful to God that someone was willing to answer his questions. He had a million of them running through his mind at the moment._

" _How the hell are the two us even still alive after the Valkyrie crashed?"_

 _Jamie looked up from her lap, and scowled at him lightly as she promptly slapped his arm. She hated it when people swore, but she did not do anything other than that. She wasn't in the mood at the moment to comment further, so she resumed staring down at her lap sadly._

 _Fury's brow rose at the mock punch, but otherwise ignored it and turned to Steve._

" _Well, as you are well aware, Rogers, you and Harper here crashed the Valkyrie in an ice field in Greenland back in '45. Everyone presumed you both to be dead, but a couple days ago, a Russian oil team found the wreckage of the crash exposed somewhat in the snow. Some of my men in S.H.I.E.L.D. were called out to look into it. We thought in might have been a downed satellite or weather balloon or something. Instead, we found you two still in the wreckage, all but frozen alive in the ice. They had the two of you shipped back here to the States ASAP so we could unthaw you."_

 _The explanation was a rather simple, but for the man and little girl out of time, it only brought more questions, especially regarding what Fury had just compared the Valkyrie wreckage to. They both stared at Fury, confused._

" _What a satellite? And a weather balloon?" Steve asked._

" _That's unimportant for the time being. What else would you like to know?"_

" _Uh… well, did we win?"_

 _Fury stared blankly at Steve._

" _The war, I mean. Did we win the war?"_

" _Oh, yes. America won. Thanks to you and Lieutenant Harper, America was able to defeat Hydra, and that crippled the Nazi's and the rest of the Axis Powers. The war in Europe ended not long after you both went missing, and without the Nazi's helping them, Japan was soon defeated, too. So, yes. Everything worked out."_

 _Steve nodded in understanding of this happy news, but Jamie didn't make any movement to show that she'd even heard a word of what was being said. She just dangled her legs off the armchair and continued clutching the pocket watch around her neck and her mentor's hand tightly._

" _I still don't understand how Jamie and I are still alive. Frozen in ice? You really can't expect us to believe that's what happened, sir."_

" _It's the truth, Rogers. You were both frozen. We at S.H.I.E.L.D. speculate that it was your regenerative healing factors that kept you both alive. The last thing either of you remember is crashing the plane, right?"_

 _Steve nodded, but Jamie still didn't do anything. Fury pursed his lips at this. He understood when reading all about Jamie Elizabeth Harper's tender emotional state that she'd probably be the harder of the two super-soldiers to convince that S.H.I.E.L.D. meant no harm to either her or Steve. Considering that Hydra agents had once kidnapped her back in January of '45 and she lost her older brother, Sergeant Trenton Harper, while escaping from them, it was understandable that she didn't truly trust Fury or anyone other than her mentor. He didn't like not having all the facts about her captivity and really wished he knew more about the whole fiasco, but not much else was known about her kidnapping. She refused to talk about it to anyone in SSR afterward, and was in shock after the fact for about a month until she snapped out of it so she could join Captain America in the final attack as Liberty Belle against the Red Skull and Hydra. He had no idea what was currently going through the kid's mind right now, but he really wished he did, that way he'd know how to get her to talk to him and start opening up about any questions she might have._

" _Sir?" said Steve, bringing Fury's back to him. "You keep mentioning S.H.I.E.L.D. You said yourself you're the Director of it, but I'm afraid we don't really know what that is."_

" _The Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcement and Logistics Division. S.H.I.E.L.D. for short. We were initially founded to be an extra-governmental military counter-terrorism and intelligence agency after the Allied victory over Hydra and the rest of the Axis Powers in World War II. Now, we protect not only the United States, but the rest of the world, too, from any potential threats."_

" _You were founded right after the war?" asked Steve in surprise._

" _Yes. You actually knew the founders."_

" _We do, or just me and not Jamie?"_

" _You both do."_

 _Fury reached over for one of the files on his desk, and slid it across the desk to Steve._

" _Colonel Chester Phillips, Howard Stark, and Agent Margaret Carter, better known as Peggy by some. They founded us."_

 _At these words, Jamie finally looked up from her lap, and mirrored her mentor's look of surprise upon hearing the names of some of their closest friends from back in the war._

" _What… what happened to all of them?" asked Steve, rather hesitantly._

" _All their files are in the packet, as well as Howard's sons' file, and your friends in the Howling Commando's squad. I even threw in your own files, if you wanted to see them. You can read them later at your own leisure's."_

 _Steve slowly nodded, and took the large file. He debated opening it right then, but decided not to. He wasn't sure if he could handle another enormous shock today. He already found out that he and his little protégé had been asleep in ice for almost seventy years and during that time had been considered dead to the rest of the world. He really didn't want to know which of their friends had indeed died during that time. At least, not at that exact moment._

 _He placed the file on his lap for the time being and looked back up at Fury._

" _What about our stuff?"_

" _Your stuff?"_

" _Our clothes and personal possessions. Do you… do you people have them stored away in boxes somewhere, or were they thrown away after we supposedly died?"_

 _Steve knew immediately that he shouldn't have thrown the last part of his question in, because Jamie suddenly turned white at the thought. It was clear she hadn't even thought of what became of her things after the plane crash until now._

" _Most of your stuff went into S.H.I.E.L.D. custody for a number of years, but now a lot of it is on display at the Smithsonian Museum in D.C."_

" _What? Why?" said Steve, completely confused. Even Jamie was surprised by that revelation._

" _They created an entire Captain America and Liberty Belle section in the museum. Your stuff's currently on display in there. If you want, my men in S.H.I.E.L.D. can retrieve some of those things from there if you want."_

" _Yes," answered Steve at once._

" _What do you want out?"_

" _Well, if you have the art portfolio Jamie gave me for my birthday, that'd be nice for me, and I was also wondering if you knew what happened to the compass I had in the plane when it went down. Jamie has her brother's pocket watch, but no one told me what happened to my compass."_

" _You mean the one with Agent Carter's picture in it? It's fine. I've got it here, actually. I just forgot to give it to you."_

 _He reached into one of the drawers in his desk, and pulled out Steve's old compass. Just like Jamie's pocket watch, the compass looked exactly the same as it had the day the Valkyrie went down. Steve took it from Fury, and smiled at it fondly before shoving it into his pocket in the meantime. He'd look at Agent Carter's picture later._

" _I'll arrange for someone to get the portfolio. And what do you want, Harper?" asked Fury, in a somewhat gentler tone. He wasn't normally a gentle-toned guy, but even could see that it would take great care in getting the little girl sitting in front of him to say anything at all._

 _Jamie bit her lip as she stared at him, but otherwise kept silent, and clutched both Steve's hand and her brother's pocket watch even tighter._

" _Take out her stuffed toys," said Steve immediately. "Take those out, along with her framed picture of her parents, her books, her record player, and her record of Come Josephine in My Flying Machine." He looked down at Jamie. "What about your record of the Wizard of Oz soundtrack? Do you want that out, too, and maybe even the Dorothy Gale dress and ruby slippers you got for Christmas?"_

 _Jamie thought for a moment, but then shook her head at both suggestions. Fury breathed a deep breath of relief at that. He might not have been able to get the kid to talk, but at least she was responding to Steve. That was progress at the very least, and it seemed as though Steve knew her well enough to know what she wants and doesn't want. That was actually another thing that needed to be discussed._

" _Rogers, there's actually something very important I need to discuss with you regarding Harper. You might want to send her out in the hall for a moment."_

 _Steve and Jamie actually looked surprised by the fact that Fury had something to discuss with Steve that he didn't want Jamie to hear. Jamie got over her shock after a moment, and looked up at Steve pleadingly as she squeezed his hand even tighter._

 _Steve recognized that she didn't want to be separated from him right now, and quickly shook his head at Fury._

" _My protégé stays here."_

" _Rogers—"_

" _Sir, I'm not leaving her alone right now. Whatever you have to say to me regarding Jamie, you can say it in front of both of us."_

 _Fury frowned, but continued._

" _She's a minor, Rogers."_

 _Steve and Jamie both stared at Fury blankly. They had no idea where he was going with this._

" _She's a minor, Rogers," Fury repeated. "A minor with no other living relatives. I figure you two would want to stay together, but I also want it clear to you, Rogers, that if you don't want to take care of her, you don't have to. Orphanages went out of business not long after World War II ended, believe it or not, but now there are things called foster families. It's basically the same thing, but with two parents caring for only a smaller number of children. If you want, I can arrange for a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent to—"_

" _No. I will take care of her."_

 _Steve did not hesitate at all with this answer. He was very firm._

" _Are you sure, Rogers? This isn't the same thing as taking care of a pet. This is raising a child. You don't have to do it if you don't—"_

" _Did you not hear me the first time, Director Fury?" said Steve, now looking very stern. "I said: I. Will. Take. Care. Of. Her. The only reason I won't do it would be if Jamie doesn't want to live with me." He looked over at Jamie. "Do you want to live with me from now on, Jamie? Or would you prefer living somewhere else?"_

 _Jamie promptly leapt out of her chair and hugged Steve tightly, not wanting to ever let go as she cried from pure joy that she would not be separated from her mentor. He was now all she had in this strange time period. Steve hugged her back. It was a couple moments before she let go of him and sat back down. Steve then looked back at Fury and continued._

" _I don't care what you have to do. Be it adoption paperwork or whatever it is you people of the future have regarding this foster care system you mentioned. Give it to me and I'll fill it out. She's staying with me from now on."_

 _Fury nodded. "Understood. I'll arrange for a legal adoption to be made."_

 _Steve and Jamie both nodded, although uncertainly. Adoption sounded strange. Steve would basically become Jamie's father in the eyes of the government, but that sounded really strange. They may care for each other more than just a mentor and prodigy relationship, but father and daughter sounded strange, as there was only a fifteen-year age difference between them. It didn't seem to be the right word to describe their relationship, but if that's what it took to ensure that they stayed together, that's what they would have to do. They would not allow S.H.I.E.L.D. to separate them just because Jamie was still just a child and needed to live with a legal adult. Steve would be her legal guardian. Nothing and nobody would stop him from taking care of her from now on._

" _Are there any other questions?" Fury asked._

 _Steve shook his head. He couldn't think of anything else at the moment. So he and Fury turned to look at Jamie. She was biting her lower lip, trying to debate whether or not to ask her own questions. Steve patted her shoulder. She looked up at him._

" _It's all right, J.J.," he reassured her. "You can him ask your questions."_

 _Upon hearing Steve's usual nickname for her, Jamie seemed to stop fidgeting, and she nodded to him before looking back over at Fury. She still didn't say anything for a few moments, but this time it was because she was gathering up her courage to speak at all. Finally, she mumbled something in such a small voice, neither men caught what it was she said._

" _Could you repeat again? Louder?" Fury asked._

" _I…" she began, her voice still quiet, but now audible for Steve and Fury to hear. "I… I do have questions, but my top question… I'm not sure if that one's all that relevant right now…"_

 _Steve just patted her head._

" _It's all right, Jamie," he assured her again. "You have questions. Fury's here to answer them, regardless of whether or not they're relevant right now or not…"_

 _Steve shot Fury a pleading glance, silently begging him to agree to answer whatever it was Jamie wanted to ask. Fury discreetly nodded. Neither of the men were entirely sure what it was Jamie had questions about, but at least they got her to talk. Fury would have to answer her questions if they wanted to keep her talking._

" _O… Okay," she said, still rather quietly._

 _She glanced up at Fury, took another deep breath, and then asked her first question._

" _I… I was just… just wondering," she said slowly. "Did Agent Carter… Did Agent Carter arrange for Trent's memorial stone to be put up like I asked her to?"_

 _Both men blinked. Out of all the questions she could have asked, that was what she wanted to know? It made sense though, as she was once again clutching onto the pocket watch that had once belonged to her older brother, Trent. The entire reason she even became Liberty Belle was so she could help her older brother in the war, and when he died, she'd been absolutely devastated. In her and Steve's last transmission to the army as the Valkyrie went down, she'd requested that Agent Carter arrange for a memorial stone to be put up for her brother alongside her parent's graves. She'd wanted to know if that had been done or not._

 _Fury nodded. "The day after you both went down, she made a lot of phone calls to the cemetery your parents were buried in and had the whole thing arranged. The cemetery's still there, if you want to see it."_

 _Jamie slowly nodded in both understanding and relief. She was glad her final supposed-death wish had been granted._

" _We'll go and visit it sometime," Steve told her suddenly. "I'll take you to go and see it."_

"' _Kay, thank you, Steve," she whispered._

 _She looked back up at Fury, and began biting her lip again. It was clear she had something else she wanted to ask, but she didn't seem to know how to phrase it. She was silent for some time as she deliberated her next question._

" _S-so… how old are we?" she asked Fury uncertainly. "I… I m-mean… you said we were in ice for… for almost s-seventy years… how l-long exactly were we in the ice for exactly? H-how old are w-we now? What's the date?"_

" _If you want to be technical on the number of years, you've both been frozen for sixty-seven years. I was rounding up to seventy. And your technical age would be ninety-two and seventy-seven, but biologically, you're both still twenty-five and ten-years-old."_

" _A-and… And t-today's date?"_

" _April 17_ _th_ _, 2012."_

" _April 17_ _th_ _?!"_

 _It was the first time that Jamie had spoken that she did not sound hesitant. In fact, her eyes were wide with complete shock. Both men were puzzled. What was so important about the date?_

" _What's wrong?" Steve asked her. Something about April rang a bell in his mind, but he couldn't quite place what it was that was so important about it._

 _But Jamie ignored him. She appeared to be deep in thought._

" _Director," she said after a moment, her voice still surprisingly steady. "When exactly were Steve and I first found, and when exactly did you people start unthawing us?"_

 _Fury didn't answer her right away. Just like Steve, he didn't know what was currently going on in her head, but he answered her question regardless._

" _The Russian oil team found you two in Greenland on April 14_ _th_ _, and we at S.H.I.E.L.D. had you both shipped back here and began defrosting you two yesterday, on the 16_ _th_ _," he said._

 _Jamie didn't say anything for a long time after that. She was still thinking hard about something. Finally, she bit her lip again, and then spoke._

" _So… we're the same age that we were when the plane first crashed in '45, right? Not any older past today when we were finally unthawed on the 16_ _th_ _, biologically speaking?"_

 _Fury exchanged a discreet, puzzled look with Steve. He hadn't the slightest idea where she was going with this, but Steve appeared to be equally lost. He, too, didn't know why his protégé was so focused on their apparent age or the date. Fury turned back to Jamie._

" _Well, yes," he answered the child super-soldier of the future. "You're still biologically ten-years-old, but why does that matter so much?"_

" _It's… it's nothing," she said sadly, not saying anything further._

" _Jamie, what is it?" Steve asked his young protégé, resting his hand on her shoulder again._

 _But Jamie just shook her head and did not say anything further. She just clutched her pocket watch tightly and began looking down at her lap again._

 _Steve just turned to Fury and shrugged. He didn't know what that had been about. Fury shrugged back. Whatever it was that that girl had been worried about, she wasn't going to talk about it._

 _They swept her line of bizarre questions from their minds. Neither of them noticed that Jamie was frowning, and looking sadly down at her lap._

* * *

Jamie awoke rather groggily from the dream. She hated this dream. She almost wished she had had a nightmare instead of dreaming this dream again. The dream was an actual memory of a day two weeks prior back in the middle of April. It was May, now. She'd had the same dream of the day she woke up in 2012 almost every other night for the past two weeks, and if it wasn't that dream she dreamed, it was of her old nightmares. She hated it.

With a sigh, she sat up in her bed, and untied the cloth gag in her mouth. She always slept with that in her mouth now, that way if she had a nightmare, Steve wouldn't have to know about it. The first time she had a nightmare, it had been a couple weeks after her kidnapping back in January in1945, and she'd screamed bloody murder in her sleep as she recalled a torture session she'd endured while in captivity. It had embarrassed her to no end when every person in the American military base in London came pounding through her bedroom door and witnessed it, but with the gag in her mouth, no one know she still got them many times after that night, and she intended to keep it that way even now.

She felt around in her little bed for her plush toys. Her stuffed panda bear Pannie, which had been a Christmas present from her father the year before he died in car accident with her mother back before she even became Liberty Belle, and her black stuffed cat Gigi, which had been a Christmas present from Trent before he died during her kidnapping. She was glad S.H.I.E.L.D. had managed to get her this stuff along with the framed picture of her parents, her books, and her portable record player and her favorite record of _Come Josephine in My Flying Machine_ out of that museum they'd been on display in. She'd have died without these items. They were her link not only to her life back in the forties, but they brought her a sense of comfort, too. So long as she had these items, she was capable of remaining sane. Her nightmares were generally horrific.

After all, not every little girl is kidnapped by Hydra agents and kept in a darkly lit cell for a day-and-a-half and beaten bloody until her bones cracked and repeatedly electrocuted in an electric chair for information she did not have regarding the United States Army's battle plans, watched her older brother be beaten to try and convince her talk, will have killed the leader of the platoon by shooting him in the head when he started beating the shit out of her brother when he tried to defend her from him, killed countless other men while the two of them escaped from the hellhole, and then be forced to leave her older brother behind to die because she had a chance to get away from the base and he told her to run and leave him. She basically killed her brother, too.

She fought back tears and hugged Pannie and Gigi to her chest as she thought about that day. She missed Trent. She missed her big brother so, so much. She wished more than anything that she could go back in time and run back to rescue him from the base instead of running off and leaving him there.

To this day, she still didn't understand fully what had happened when they escaped the base. The two of them had had a well thought out plan on getting out of there. Trent had pried apart the bars in his cell, and they had planned to wait until the guard change at night for him to sneak out, and knock out the guard that had changed shifts in order to get the keys to her cell. But then the Hydra squad leader came into the cellblocks, and seemed quite eager to start a late night torture session with her. She had repeated the same thing she'd said over the past day-and-a-half of her captivity: she did not know what the American's battle plans were. But the Hydra leader hadn't believed her.

This was where things got confusing for her. He'd said something about wanting to try a different type of approach to making her tell him the truth, and held a gun to her head as he unlocked her chains. Then he told her to take off her Liberty Belle dress and get on the ground. She didn't understand why he wanted her to do that, but whatever it was that he was going to do, it had still frightened her, and he never got the chance to do it, because Trent went ballistic. He knew exactly what the man wanted to do to her, it seemed, because he burst out of his cell and began wailing on the guard as he screamed insanities that he was a sick fuck and there were rules to how prisoners of war were supposed to be treated.

She didn't understand what it was Trent had been talking about. There were rules as to how prisoners of war were supposed to be treated? What were they? And why didn't that Hydra leader obey them? What was it that Trent had stopped him from doing to her?

She really wished she could ask Steve these questions, but she was afraid to do that. If she asked him her questions as to what had transpired, that would mean telling him all about everything that had happened to her when she was kidnapped, and he had never seemed to care about her enough to even ask her about it. Agent Carter asked her once, but he didn't. And besides, she'd have to admit everything to him when she asked him her questions. For starters, the guard wanting to her take off her dress was embarrassing. She didn't want to tell him that. He was a man. That was weird.

And she'd killed not only that Hydra leader, but countless other men to get out. She'd promised herself when she first became Liberty Belle that with the obvious exception to killing the Red Skull, that she would not kill. She'd made that her motto, and despite what Steve always told her that it was okay to kill during war, she would not do it. She'd have to tell him that not only did she kill so many men that day in order to get out, but that she left Trent behind, too, and that was even worse. That was something that she should not have done, even if it had cost her life. If Steve ever found out that she killed her big brother that day by leaving him behind, she was sure he'd be furious. He might even take away her Liberty Belle mask if he was really angry. He was all she had anymore, and she wanted him to be proud of her. And just in theory, what would happen to her after he took away her mask?

She had once eavesdropped on a conversation held between him, Agent Carter, Colonel Chester Phillips, and famed inventor Howard Stark on what was to be done with her after her kidnapping. She'd been in a very bad place after losing Trent during her captivity, and they'd been discussing if it was possible that she might be crazy now, or should even go back out onto the battlefield. Steve hadn't wanted her to go out in the final battle, but he did defend her from the crazy theory that Agent Carter and Colonel Phillips had been suggesting. Colonel Phillips had even suggested that if she didn't even snap out of her shock soon, they might have to look into electro shock therapy for her to get her head straightened out again.

Jamie had already had had enough of the electric chair during her captivity. If she were to tell Steve now about everything she endured, and being furious with her, who's to say he wouldn't now take Phillips side and even drag her to the electric chair himself now to get her to be normal again? She wasn't going back to the electric chair. She would never tell him anything about what had happened to her those two days.

And besides, why should she tell him? He didn't care enough to ask her about it, and he certainly didn't care enough about her in general to even remember something she had told him about a long time ago. Something that he really should have remembered, despite the fact that they'd both been shocked to discover that they'd been frozen in ice for seventy years.

With a sigh, she set her plush toys down next to her, and reached over at her bedside table for her brother's pocket watch. She threw it on over her neck before standing up to go to her closet in order to dress for the day. S.H.I.E.L.D. had taken the liberty to buy her and Steve new clothes before buying them this temporary two-bedroom apartment for them to stay in until they decided what they wanted to do with their lives from now on. While some of the clothes she really did like, others she did not. Clothing styles had changed during her and Steve's seventy-year nap, and she didn't like half the clothes in her closet. The frilly dresses with pleated skirts and sailor dresses with big collars that her mother had bought her before she died were way out of style, though the idea of pleated skirts alone was not. She put on a black pleated skirt and then began sifting around for a top. At least the idea of t-shirts and button down blouses was still around, but she didn't exactly approve of the splashy colors. No bright colors for her today. Just something simple, like a neutral-colored blouse… There! A plain white blouse! She threw that on, too, and then slammed the closet shut. She didn't want to even look at the other clothes. While the various colors weren't too bad, girls aren't supposed to wear jeans and shorts, or any other type of pants. It wasn't appropriate. She missed the days when she could put on a sailor style dress and not be considered abnormal, because in this time period, unless you lived in Japan where sailor dresses were generally favored as school uniforms for girls, the only kids that wore them were babies and toddlers. She wasn't a whiny baby or a toddler. She was _ten-years-old._

She sighed again at that thought, and then turned to grab a brush on her dresser, and looked at her reflection in the mirror as she brushed her hair so it would be parted on the side in a traditional '40's hairstyle and was nice and smooth, and then fixed a white headband with a white ribbon on top of her head. Once upon a time, she used to fix her hair up in two pigtails with white ribbons to hold them in place, but those days were done. She was still a kid, and she wanted to look and feel like a kid, but she didn't feel as childlike as she had back then to put the pigtails in. She wasn't that _type_ of kid anymore. She was Liberty Belle, and Liberty Belle wore her hair down, not up.

She scooped her plush panda and cat off her bed before opening her bedroom door and exiting her room. It was a new day. A new day with a new opportunity to try and remind Steve what he should not have forgotten about when it came to her.

The apartment S.H.I.E.L.D. was letting them stay in while they figured out what they were going to do with their lives was still in New York City. It was actually Nick Fury's cabin safe house, and he told them they could stay there for as long as they needed over the course of the summer. By the time autumn rolled in, though, he needed them to give them some answer as to what would be done, because autumn meant that school's would be back in session again, and Jamie would have to continue her education. Whether it be to go to school somewhere in New York or somewhere else if they chose to leave the Big Apple, Steve and Jamie would have to give a Fury an answer by then. In the meantime, though, Fury had been nice enough to completely refurnish the apartment into a typical apartment by 1940's standards. The only exceptions being to things like the television and telephone, which both had been all but impossible for S.H.I.E.L.D. to find ancient replicas of so that the two super-soldiers would feel more at home. Instead, there was a flat screen TV, and the landline phone was wireless. Jamie almost wished that they were both out of the apartment instead of in it, because those two modern technologies were completely out of place in the rest of the temporary home, and served as cold truths of reminders for she and Steve that they, too, did not belong in this new world.

Speaking of Steve, he was already awake, dressed nicely in a plaid button down shirt and a pair of beige trousers and his blonde hair smoothly parted on the side in the traditional men's hairstyle back in the '40's. He had the stupid television turned on and was watching it from his place at the kitchen table. Jamie opened her mouth to greet him good-morning, but the words on the television cut her off before she could say anything.

" _War! With the forces of darkness pressing in from the East on the West. America heeds the call to fight for freedom. And at the front of the fight, shoulder to shoulder with our battling boys, is Captain America and Liberty Belle, the products of old-fashioned values and exciting new science!"_

Jamie completely froze. What in the name of God was Steve watching? She moved a few more paces into the room to see what was on the TV. The TV was actually playing an old movie theatre promo about the two of them back when they were still Captain America and Liberty Belle fighting against the Nazi's, and there were old film reels playing while the narrator of the promo commented on the two of them either doing their old fake movie promos, or actually on the front lines of the battlefield with their old friends in the Howling Commandos and SSR.

Steve didn't even notice her when she came in. He was just numbly watching the old promo play with a sad expression.

" _Captain America and Liberty Belle are the name's every Nazi fears. Uncle Adolf's secret new weapons are no match for our great team. When tough times turn tougher, when hope's on the ropes, here's the team to knock the Axis on their backs. They're out there, fighting for the land that we love, and they won't stop—"_

Click.

Steve had grabbed the remote control and shut off the television. He was looking very, very sad, and Jamie could understand why. The last shot on the television had been an image of him standing beside Sergeant James Barnes, otherwise known as his lifelong friend Bucky.

The way Jamie had lost Trent during the war, Steve had lost his childhood friend Bucky. That was actually something else she blamed herself for, his death. Right before Hydra kidnapped her, she, Steve, Trent, Bucky, and the rest of the Howling Commandos had been on a mission to find and capture the top Hydra biochemist, Doctor Arnim Zola. They'd cornered him on a train, but while Trent and one of the other members of their squad, Gabe Jones, had gone off to try and capture Zola himself, she, Steve, and Bucky had been in charge of clearing the train of Hydra agents. One Hydra agent had blasted a hole in the side of the train, and Bucky fell right out, barely grasping onto a piece of metal jutting out so he wouldn't fall to his death down a snowy ravine. While Steve, although unsuccessfully, risked his life to try and save Bucky, Jamie herself hadn't done anything. She just stayed on the ground and watched in shock as the piece of metal broke away and Bucky fell to his death.

Bucky's death was a sensitive topic for Steve, and Jamie never brought it up, because deep down, she knew that Steve really did secretly blame her for what happened. She knew it, because right after Bucky died, Jamie had tried to console him about it, and even tried to apologize for not helping, but Steve never gave her the opportunity to say more than a couple words. He just snapped at her to shut up and refused to meet her gaze.

Jamie frowned. She really should try apologizing to him about that again, but Steve seemed to be really sad right now. She'd tell him later.

"Good morning, Steve," she called out softly.

Steve jumped, not having her heard her come in, and turned around in his chair.

"Oh, morning Jamie," he said politely.

"Why were you watching that?" Jamie asked, nodding in the direction of the TV. "I would've thought you would've turned it off the moment it came on."

"Just… reliving the past, I guess," he mumbled vaguely.

"Oh."

There was a long, tense silence after that. The two of them used to be able to talk to one another very easily without any long, awkward pauses, but lately, ever since they were unthawed from the ice, the two of them really didn't even know what to say. Steve wasn't sure how to treat Jamie anymore because he knew that she was still very sad about losing Trent, even though he didn't know all the details about that, and still a tiny bit in shock over her kidnapping, even though she tried to hide it. Jamie, meanwhile, wasn't really sure what to say to Steve anymore, especially because of the super important thing he forgot when it came to her.

This was actually a good time to bring it up.

"Have you looked at our files yet?" she asked.

Steve blinked. "Our files?"

"The files that Nick Fury gave us," she clarified. "He gave us copies of our own files with the files of everyone else back in the war. Have you looked at them yet?"

"Oh. No, not yet."

"Why?"

"I just… looking at our files means looking through the rest of the files in that folder that Fury gave us. I… I haven't really wanted to see who's still alive and… and who's not…"

Jamie frowned. He had a valid point at that. She was also scared to find out which of their friends in the SSR were still alive or not. She was sure that at least some of them were dead, but the one person that was making Steve so anxious when it came to that folder was about Agent Peggy Carter, the woman he'd fallen in love with before they were frozen. He didn't want to know if she'd died a long time ago or not.

But still, this had gone on long enough. Not only did they need to know who was still around, but Jamie felt like she had the right to be selfish when it came to showing Steve her own personal file. Maybe if he looked at it and read it thoroughly, he'd finally apologize to her for forgetting the super important thing he'd forgotten about her.

"We can't just sit here anymore, Steve," she said, plopping down beside him at the table and setting her stuffed animals down on top of its wooden surface. "We have to look at them some time."

Steve didn't say anything in reply for a long time. He knew his little protégé was right. They really should have opened that folder up weeks ago. It was high time they did it.

"Yeah, you're right," he said finally. "I'll get it."

He stood up from the table, and moved over to a shelf. He grabbed the file, and dropped it down on the table in front of Jamie before sitting back down.

For a moment, neither of them dared to touch it. This was very, very nerve-wracking. As soon as they opened that file, they could never go back to being ignorant of who was still alive, and who was currently dead. They'd be forced to feel guilty that they'd never had the chance to even say goodbye to their old friends, or even attend their funerals. This was the moment of truth.

With a sigh, Steve pulled the file folder up closer to him and flicked it open, and they both began perusing its contents. They started with their fellow squad members from the Howling Commandos:

Jacques Dernier — Alive

Timothy 'Dum Dum' Dugan — Alive

James Montgomery Falsworth — Deceased

Gabe Jones — Alive

Jim Morita — Deceased

Steve and Jamie both had to stop for a moment after they scanned these files.

"I can't believe Jim and Falsworth are dead…" Jamie said sadly.

Steve didn't say anything in reply to her comment. He just set them aside and looked over at the next file in the folder.

The next one was of Colonel Chester Phillips. Both Steve and Jamie frowned when they saw the word 'deceased' stamped across the page in large, boldly printed red letters, but really though, they'd both been expecting this death at least. Colonel Phillips had been a strict and honorable man, but he'd also been very old. He'd been in his mid-sixties when they'd known him. If he were still alive today, that meant he lived to be well over a hundred and thirty by now. It was impossible for him to still be around, but still, they missed the guy. He was stern at times, but he was still a good man.

Steve dropped Phillips file down on top of the rest of the stack of their fellow Howling Commandos files, and glanced down at the next one. To his and Jamie's surprise, it was Agent Carter's file. A picture of the dark-haired beauty that had been Steve's love interest in the war was taped to the corner of the file, and staring solemnly up at him and Jamie. Instead of red letters printed across the page, there were black letters instead, and they spelled out a very different word: Retired.

"She's still alive! Steve! Agent Carter's still alive!" said Jamie happily.

For a long time, Steve did not say or do anything. He just stared in disbelief at the little word printed in black. He could not believe that she was still alive. She had to be somewhere in her early nineties by now. He quickly thrust the page over to Jamie, who looked very puzzled that he was not reading it.

"Steve? What're you—?"

"I… I'm afraid to read it," he said slowly. "Read it to me, Jamie. I can't read it myself, but… but I need to know what it says…"

"O-okay…" she said. She quickly scanned the file, but soon frowned. "You're not going to like it, Steve."

"What? She wasn't dishonorably discharged from the army, was she?"

"No, nothing like that!" she protested quickly. "It's just…well…"

"What?"

"She moved on after we — well, mainly you, I mean— got frozen… She moved on. She got married…"

There was a very long stretch of silence after these words. Jamie regretted having said them at all, because the shocked, hurt look on Steve's face was absolutely heartbreaking to her. She wished she could say something — anything, really — in order to get that horrible look off his face, but this was his turn to be upset.

Steve really didn't understand why this was so shocking to him. He knew he should have anticipated this. He and Jamie had both been presumed dead. Of course Peggy would have moved on with her life. Hell, he even told her a metaphoric goodbye during his last transmission on the _Valkyrie._ He didn't ask her to always love him. He just asked for a rain check for that dance they never had a chance to share. He was hurt, but he couldn't fault her for moving on. To him, their first and only kiss was just a couple weeks ago. But to her? To her, that promise and that kiss happened seventy years ago. She didn't know he was still alive, and even if she did, she wasn't just going to put her life on hold while waiting for him. She was an old woman by now. Of course she would have wanted to fall in love again.

"Married?" he said after a while.

Jamie reluctantly nodded. "Yeah, to some other soldier in the war. His name's not listed."

"What about kids?"

Jamie peered down at the paper again. She gave him another reluctant nod. "Two. A boy and a girl."

Steve's heart clenched again upon learning that, and he bent his head to hide his sad expression. Her getting married was one thing, but finding out she had children of her own? That broke his heart. Again, he didn't blame her for moving on and starting a family. He didn't. He just wished he could've been the guy she had had that family with. Was it wrong to wish that?

Jamie set the file down on the table for a moment and hugged her mentor. Steve's head snapped up at this kind, comforting gesture from his little protégé.

"I'm sorry, Steve," she whispered. "I know you loved her…"

Slowly, Steve wrapped his arms around Jamie, and hugged her back.

"No need to be sorry," he said. "It's not your fault…"

"But she moved on," said Jamie, not understanding how Steve could be so monotonous about all this. "You're allowed to be sad."

"I'm okay, really," he muttered, breaking away from the hug. "Tell me, what else does it say?"

Jamie picked file back up and read its contents again.

"There's a phone number listed," she told him. "She's currently living somewhere out in D.C. You could call her right now."

Steve hesitated for a moment, deliberating this suggestion as he glanced over at the telephone, but then shook his head.

"No, not today."

"Why?"

"For starters, I'm really not ready to talk to her quite yet, but more importantly, don't you think we might shock her if we suddenly call her out of the blue? She's thought us both dead for the past sixty-seven years."

Jamie frowned, but still nodded at his logic.

"Yeah, I guess you're right…"

Jamie set down the file on top of the others, and she and Steve looked at the next one.

This one was for Howard, and to both of the super-soldiers dismays, he was also among those who were gone.

"No…" Jamie whispered, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. "No… not Howie! He was still young! He… He was young enough to make it! He should still be alive! What happened?!"

This time, it was Steve skimming the file and reading its contents out loud to Jamie.

"It says here that he got married to a girl named Maria, and they had a son together named Anthony in 1970, though everyone just calls him Tony. They both died in a car crash in '91. After his death, Tony apparently took over as being the CEO of Stark Industries. His permanent address is somewhere in California."

Jamie stared in disbelief at what she'd just been told. "Howie named his son after Trent?"

Steve stared at her. "What're you talking about?"

"Anthony Stark. Trent's middle name was Anthony. Howie named his son after Trent's middle name."

Jamie sighed, and picked Pannie and Gigi up from the surface of the table to give them both a big hug.

"I'd really been hoping that Howie was still around," she said after a few moments. "It would've been nice to see him again. He was so nice… I wish he'd have lived a longer life…"

"You and me both, J.J.," said Steve sadly.

He dropped Howard's file down on the rest of the stack, and turned to the next one.

To his and Jamie's surprise, the next file had a picture depicting a man that looked a lot like Howard. He had Howard's dark hair and eyes, and a small goatee. It was a file all about Howard's son, Tony Stark, and it was very detailed.

"Look at the size of this file!" Jamie said, her eyes wide at the fact that there were several pages stapled together. "Just how important is this guy?"

Steve didn't answer her right away. He was already reading some of the main points listed on the front page.

"He's like us," he said finally.

"Like us? What do you mean?"

"He fights crime. He made himself into a superhero. A mechanical flying guy called Iron Man."

"Iron Man?"

Steve nodded, and continued reading. His eyes widened after a moment.

"Whoa… that's interesting…"

"What? What is it?"

"He got kidnapped a couple years ago by a terrorist group called the Ten Rings while doing a weapons demonstration in Afghanistan. They wanted him to build some kind of missile. The whole reason he even built the Iron Man suit was originally so he could escape and destroy the weapons technology they stole from him…"

Jamie's jaw dropped. She was in shock. There was someone else out there who had gone through a similar experience to her. Tony Stark had been kidnapped by terrorists. She'd been kidnapped by Hydra. He was someone she could ask her questions to regarding the whole 'rules of treating prisoners of war.'

"He's just like me, then," she whispered.

"Huh?"

"He got kidnapped! I was kidnapped! He's just like me!"

Steve scoffed at that as he recalled something else he read on the first page of Stark's file. "No, you're nothing like Tony Stark."

"But you just told me that—"

"You share one thing in common. That's all. You do not have his personality."

"His personality?"

"In big bold print on the first page, I quote: He's volatile, self-obsessed, and doesn't play well with others."

"Really?"

"Yeah, and he's also apparently an even bigger playboy than Howard was. He has a steady girlfriend at the moment, his personal secretary Pepper Potts, but before that, he could hardly be seen leaving parties without at least two girls on each of his arms, and he even missed attending government events and award ceremonies more than once. Howard at least had the decency to know that there's a time and a place for things. This Tony guy doesn't understand the meaning of limits…"

"I'd still like to meet him," Jamie insisted, kicking her feet back and forth as she sat in her chair. "He's still Howie's son…"

"Maybe someday," Steve muttered, but secretly, he was deciding that 'maybe someday' was a direct translation for 'maybe never.' He didn't want such an irresponsible man anywhere near his little protégé. He could at least pacify her interest in Stark for the time being with something else. "You know, Stark's supposedly building a tower somewhere in the city. We could go and at least wait around for awhile to see if he might fly by as Iron Man."

He started to stand up.

Jamie immediately panicked. The entire reason she'd had him start going through these files was so he'd look at her personal file and realize what it was she was a little hurt that he'd forgotten about. She had to make him stay and look at her file.

"Wait! We still haven't looked at our own files!"

"Is it really necessary? We already know everything about ourselves."

"Indulge me!"

Steve rolled his eyes, but sat back down. He found his file first, and stared at the two different pictures inside. The first was of him pre-serum, when he was still a thin, sickly man with no muscles whatsoever. The other was of him after the serum injections, and he looked exactly the same as the him in the picture in the Captain America uniform

"I really was a walking toothpick," he muttered, staring at the lankier picture of himself. "Seriously, I can't believe I was ever that skinny…"

"You were still nice," Jamie insisted. "You still were able to rescue me, remember?"

Steve nodded. The first he ever met Jamie, it was because he'd saved her from getting beaten by some other mean kids back at the orphanage she'd been living at. To this day, he was glad he'd done it. If he hadn't, he doubted he'd ever have come to appreciate the little girl sitting next to him. Jamie was a special little girl, and he was glad she was his sidekick.

He flopped his file down on the rest of the stack, and picked up the last file in the packet. Jamie's file. Just like his own file, there were two pictures of her in it. One of her before the serum injections that made them both into super-soldiers, and one of her after in the Liberty Belle dress and mask. The picture of her before depicted a short and scrawny little girl with somewhat dark hair, and even though the picture didn't show it because it was in black and white, Steve knew that the Jamie in this photograph had light brown hair instead, whereas the picture of her post-serum definitely revealed the dark brown hair she currently possessed, as well as the change in height and newly acquired muscles.

"Is there anything _interesting_ in my file?" asked Jamie pointedly.

Steve gave her a queer look, but otherwise shook his head. He didn't know why she'd stressed the word 'interesting,' but there was nothing all that unusual in her file at all. He hadn't a clue what she was talking about.

"Not really, no. Just the usual stuff. Your full name, family members, your relationship to me and the rest of the SSR, your alias of Liberty Belle, etcetera etcetera…"

"Oh," she said, trying to seem nonchalant and not disappointed.

Steve bought it, and quickly replaced all the files back into the folder and stood up.

"You know, it's still early enough for breakfast. You want to go out to that café down the street? There's a good view of the Stark Tower from outside. We might catch a glimpse of Howard's famous son."

"Yeah, sure," she said as she got to her feet, trying to sound somewhat interested, because on the inside, she was an emotional mess.

They went over to the hallway closet, and she tried to keep her face in a neutral expression as Steve handed her a cute pair of black Mary-Jane's as he started to slip on a brown pair of loafers. She was very hurt.

Steve had just skimmed over the facts on her file. Had he had read it thoroughly, he would have read the same thing that she herself had realized two weeks ago when they were first unfrozen and Fury had told them the current date while they'd been sitting in his office.

They'd been found on April 14th, began defreezing on April 16th, and officially unfrozen on April 17th.

Had he thoroughly read her file, he would have read that she had been born on the April 14th, 1934.

Due to the dates of her unfreezing, she'd skipped her eleventh birthday.

She was going to stay ten-years-old for another year.

And Steve hadn't even remembered or cared at all.

* * *

Jamie sipped daintily from her carton of milk as she sat next to Steve at their little table outside of the café. There was chocolate chip cookie on the napkin in front of her, and Steve had a mug of coffee in front of him as well as a half-eaten bagel, but he wasn't focusing on his meager meal. He was making a quick doodle of the Stark Tower looming over them against the city skyline on his napkin, and Jamie was reading the book he'd bought her during their last Christmas before they got frozen, _Peter Pan,_ or at least she was pretending to.

She had been reading the same sentence over and over again for over five minutes now, but the words weren't sinking in. She didn't know why she'd grabbed this and not her mother's copy of _The Wizard of Oz_ before they left the apartment. _The Wizard of Oz_ was her favorite book. She'd liked _Peter Pan_ just fine before she got frozen. It'd been Steve's Christmas present to her after all, but after the past two weeks, she couldn't help but resent the principle of the story a little bit.

Because in reality, she was just like Peter Pan.

She'd never grown up.

She was still a kid.

A kid that had missed her birthday.

A birthday Steve hadn't even remembered.

She held the book tightly in her hand and took another bite of her cookie to keep from frowning. She felt she had a right to be somewhat angry. While she'd never actually told her mentor the exact date of her birthday in the past, she had told him on two different occasions that her birthday was in April. She understood he had more pressing matters on his mind right now, considering he was just as shocked as she was upon going to sleep in the mid-twentieth century and then waking up in the near beginning of the twenty-first, but she was still entitled to be a little mad. She'd hoped over the past two weeks since their unfreezing, that Steve would suddenly remember and apologize to her for forgetting it, but that had never happened. That's why she'd been so insistent that they look through their files. She'd wanted him to read it and see for himself that their unfreezing had caused her to miss her eleventh birthday, but he hadn't even thoroughly read it enough to look at her date of birth.

She had remembered and celebrated his birthday back in July of 1944. Was it wrong to want him to remember and console her that she'd been forced to skip hers?

She could just tell him, she knew. She could. There was nothing stopping her from just blurting it out right then: Steve, you forgot about my birthday! It wasn't a hard thing to do, but she felt she shouldn't have to. He had her file. Had he read it thoroughly, he'd know it himself. She shouldn't have to tell him about it when he already technically knew it. He should know already that she'd missed her eleventh birthday. He shouldn't have to have her tell him herself.

With a sigh, she swallowed the last of her cookie, and turned back to her book. She had to stop dwelling on this. She wanted to keep reading and enjoying _Peter Pan._ Other than feeling sorry for herself by comparing her current predicament to Peter Pan, the story itself was actually really good. It was a fantasy novel, and she like fantasy stories. Especially if those stories included plot points about flying. There was nothing she loved more on earth than flying. She wished the serum injections that had given her her powers had also given her the ability to fly. If it had, she'd be a bird, and fly away from her problems. She'd just spread her wings, and fly far, far away.

"Waiting on the big guy?" came a voice on her right.

Jamie quickly set down her book, and Steve looked up from his brief sketch. A waitress with pretty blonde hair and brilliant blue eyes was standing beside their table with a pitcher of piping hot coffee. The nametag on her right of her shirt read 'Beth,' and she was smiling brightly at Steve and Jamie as she waited expectantly for some type of a response.

"Huh?" said Jamie, a bit startled from the interruption.

"Ma'am?" said Steve, confused as to what she meant.

"Iron Man," she clarified, gesturing vaguely in the direction of Stark Tower in the background as she spoke. "A lot of people eat here just to see him fly by."

"Oh, right," said Steve, looking up at the tower.

Jamie sheepishly shrugged at the waitress. "Yeah, technically," she said to the woman. "I was really hoping to see him. I've heard a lot about him…"

Beth the Waitress smiled charmingly at Jamie before flashing Steve a coy smile.

"You're niece is really cute," she told Steve.

Steve and Jamie both blanched at her statement. Is that really what people were assuming what they were? Uncle and niece? It made sense, in a way. He was in no way old enough for people to consider him to be her father. But that term did not fit when it came to describing their relationship.

"N-niece?" Steve repeated.

"Steve's not my uncle!" Jamie insisted, staring wide-eyed at the waitress.

The waitress immediately looked apologetic.

"Oh! I'm sorry! I… I just assumed…"

"It's okay," said Steve, fishing his wallet out from the back pocket of his trousers. "Maybe another time."

He threw a number of bills down on the table to pay for their breakfast.

"Let's get going, Jamie."

But Beth the Waitress didn't want them to leave yet. She found Steve to be very, very handsome. She quickly recovered from her quick mishap of mislabeling Steve and Jamie's relationship, and poured more coffee into Steve's mug.

"Table's yours for as long as you two like," she insisted, speaking only to Steve as she continued. "Nobody's waiting on it. Plus, we've got free wireless."

She winked at him, and then moved to tend to some customers at another table, completely missing the puzzled look that Steve and Jamie were currently exchanging.

"What's wireless?" Jamie whispered to her mentor.

Steve just shrugged, and glanced back over at the retreating waitress. "Radio?" he called out after her.

The waitress looked back at the two of them over her shoulder, giggled, and then shifted her attention back to her customers.

Steve looked back over at Jamie and shrugged. That had been weird.

There was suddenly a loud snicker from the table behind them. Steve and Jamie both turned around. There was an old man with white hair and dark sunglasses directly behind them, enjoying his own breakfast with some friends, but he was not looking at them. He was looking directly at Steve.

"Ask for her number, you moron," he muttered.

Steve flushed. He hadn't realized that the waitress had been trying to flirt with him. He really was an idiot. Still, though, it was too soon. He was still trying to get over Peggy, and besides, it wasn't the right time to start any possible new relationships. Dating again was out of the question for quite some time, or at least until he figured out how to handle all of this: how he was going to live in this new world, and take on the roles of parental responsibilities necessary for raising Jamie.

Speaking of Jamie, he was thankfully spared from answering the man's statement by her suddenly standing up, stretching a bit, and grabbing her novel.

"We should get going, Steve," she told him. "It's almost noon. We have that private training time reserved, remember?"

"Oh, that's right!"

As Steve quickly stood up from his seat, the old man turned to Jamie and chuckled.

"Kid," he began. "I think I should tell you that you're insistence to leave right now is ruining your older brother's chances at getting laid…"

Steve's head snapped up upon hearing what the old man had called him, and turned immediately to look at Jamie. She had completely seized up in shock. One hand was still holding her book, but the other was snaking its way up to her neck, where Trent's pocket watch was hanging. She clutched it tightly.

Memories of her real older brother were flashing before her eyes like a movie reel. She remembered the way Trent had always smiled closed lip smiles, how he stuck out his tongue when preparing to swing a home run, or of how he always sounded when he called her by his personal nickname for her: James.

"Older… Older brother?" she said finally, in a very slow voice.

The man nodded. "Yeah. I mean, that's what I assumed. You said yourself that the guy's not your uncle. He's got to be your brother, then…"

"No, I'm not her brother," said Steve quickly. He struggled to remember what Fury had said he was from now on when he'd discussed with him the legal matters of Jamie's new living arrangements with him. Then it hit him. "She lost her real family. I'm her… I'm her foster parent."

"Oh!" said the man, now looking apologetic. He turned back to Jamie. "My apologies and condolences."

Jamie accepted his words with a stiff nod. She really just wanted to get out of there. Steve recognized that, and nodded goodbye to the nosy old man before grabbing Jamie's free hand, and leading her away from the café. He really didn't want her to start crying right there in the middle of the outdoor café.

But Jamie did not cry. She just walked along silently beside her mentor as they made their way a little further down the crowded streets of NYC to the local gym. She was actually a little hurt that he'd just labeled himself as her foster parent. She didn't like that phrasing. He wasn't her Dad. She'd had a Dad. He wasn't that to her. That was also an inaccurate way to describe their relationship.

What were they anymore?

"J.J.," said Steve. Jamie looked up at him. "Are you okay?"

Jamie held his hand tightly and nodded.

"I just miss him, Steve," she told Steve. "I miss Trent. I miss my big brother…"

"I know," said Steve kindly. "I know you do…

"I think I asked you once if it ever gets easier to deal with how much it hurts losing my parents," she said quietly. "You told me I'll always miss them, but the pain will lessen over time… When will that happen with Trent?"

"I don't know," he answered. "Really, Jamie, I don't have an answer for you. Sometimes, people can get over the death of a loved one right away, but for others, it can take months, or even years. It all depends."

"I don't want it to take months or years, though," she whimpered a bit as she clutched his hand rather tightly. "I want the pain to go away now!"

Steve opened his mouth to say more, but they turned the corner, and he spied the fitness center.

"Come on," he gently urged, leading her up to the doors and holding them open for his young apprentice. "It's training time."

Jamie nodded, and followed him inside. Fury and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. had actually paid the owner of this place over ten thousand dollars at the beginning of these past two weeks to have the entire place emptied out for a couple hours each day on the weekdays so Steve and Jamie could stay in shape, not to mention so Steve could also properly train in sidekick in seclusion, as he was the only person on earth that could train her in one day surpassing him. As the genetically enhanced super-soldiers from World War II, they couldn't train alongside normal people in a gym. People would automatically know that there was something different about the young, twenty-something-year-old man and the little dark-haired girl that trailed along behind him. They might even guess that they were the recently rediscovered and unfrozen Captain America and Liberty Belle. This was a necessary precaution.

Steve and Jamie both nodded politely to the owner when they entered. The owner didn't say anything in reply, but did nod in return as they headed off to the locker rooms to change. They both kept a bag full of workout clothes in the locker rooms. Jamie approached her locker, unlocked it, and pulled out the duffel bag with her clothes inside. She unzipped it and got changed. Although she really didn't care too much for the new clothing styles of the world, she did admit that black stretchy pants, a light blue t-shirt, and white gym shoes were easier for her to train in than her current white blouse and black skirt. She reluctantly removed Trent's pocket watch from around her neck, tied the laces of her sneakers, grumbled upon seeing what she looked like in the mirror as a modern-day child, and then left the locker room and entered the gym.

Steve was already inside, having changed into a white t-shirt and beige cargo pants, and had already taped up his knuckles and was pounding relentlessly upon a hanging punching bag hanging from a thick chain and metal hook to the ceiling, and stuffed to the brim with sand as he waited for her. He noticed her when she came in, and quickly stopped and looked over. His eyes widened for a moment, but then turned normal again.

"I don't think I'm ever going to get used to seeing you in pants," he muttered.

"I don't think I'm ever going to get used to wearing them," she grumbled back.

She marched into the gym, and approached the bench nearby to wrap her hands in tape like him.

"So," she said, tying the knots onto her palms. "What're we doing today? More time with the punching bag, or are we both going in the ring?"

She jerked her thumb over her shoulder at the boxing ring in the corner.

"We'll start off with a couple reps on the bag, then I'll walk you through the basics of kickboxing, and if we have time afterwards, we'll hop in the ring for a bit."

"'Kay. Let's start."

Steve nodded, and then motioned for her to join him in front of the punching bag.

He started off by coaching her through the basics again, showing her the proper techniques in throwing punches, then he allowed her to try.

"Like this, Steve?" she asked, striking the bag with absolute precision and power necessary in making a right hook.

Steve nodded in approval. "That's good, Jamie," he commended her. "You're doing very good, but you're moving too slow."

"Too slow?"

"You don't have to stop after every punch and ask me whether or not you did okay. You have to keep pounding on it relentlessly. Watch me."

Jamie stepped aside, and allowed Steve to take her place in front of the punching bag. At first, he began striking it repeatedly in demonstration, but as time wore on, a focused, determined look came over his face, and he began punching the bag even harder and faster.

Jamie stared at him as he continued whacking the bag. She understood that he was getting lost in a memory, and he was releasing all the tension and anger he had from the knowledge that they'd both been frozen for the past seventy years into the punching bag, but he was scaring her a little bit.

"Um… Steve?" she said hesitantly.

Steve didn't hear her. He couldn't. His mind had wandered away from the fact that he was supposed to just be doing a presentation for Jamie. He was back in 1945, and punching this bag was the only way he could deal with the fact that he was reliving those last few minutes on the Valkyrie before the crash into the ice field.

"Steve?"

" _There's not enough time. I got to put her in the water…"_

"Steve?!"

" _You won't be alone…"_

"Please, stop!"

" _Can you arrange for there to be a memorial stone of some kind beside my parents graves?"_

"Steve! Stop!"

" _Steve… I'm scared…"_

"STEVEN GRANT ROGERS!"

Steve snapped out of his thoughts completely upon hearing Jamie screaming his name at him, but he was unable to stop his fist from delivering one last final punch. It struck the punching bag with enough force to send it flying off its chain and hook. It hit the wall a couple yards away, and completely exploded, sending sand scattering everywhere across the wooden floorboards.

Steve stared after it for a moment, blinking and panting in disbelief from what he'd done. Then he looked down at Jamie. She was staring at him with her mouth hanging open and her eyes wide. She was not only scared of what he'd just done, she was in shock, too. Her mentor was truly shocking when he got really upset.

Steve immediately looked apologetic. "I'm sorry," he told her. "I didn't mean to scare you…"

"It's… It's okay," she said slowly, looking away from Steve so she could stare at the punching bag by the wall. "I… I know you got lost in a memory… I understand, but just… Just don't do that again!"

"I promise," he said at once.

Jamie looked back over at him as he wiped away the sweat on his brow, and moved aside for a moment to get another punching bag. He dragged this one over, hung it up on the chain and metal hook on the ceiling, and then stood aside.

"I say my turn's done. You're up again, Jamie."

Jamie nodded, and moved to stand in front of the bag. She was just starting a new round of hits on this new bag, when the last voice she or her mentor had been expecting to hear right then suddenly came from the main entrance.

"Trouble sleeping, you two?"

Steve and Jamie both whirled around. Standing at the entrance was none other than Nick Fury himself, with both of his hands hidden behind his back.

The two super-soldiers exchanged looks of surprise. What was Fury doing here?

Jamie gave the punching bag a couple more firm whacks as Steve turned to address him.

"We slept for seventy years, sir," he told the Director. "I think we've both had our fill."

"Then you two should be out. Celebrating," Fury calmly replied, leisurely strolling inside so he could speak with them. "Seeing the world."

At those last words, Jamie finally stopped hitting the bag, and gave him her full attention. "Why?" she asked. "What's the point?"

Steve actually nodded in agreement to her rhetorical questions, and then motioned for her to follow him over to the bench, as that was where he'd dumped his training equipment. There was no point staying any longer. Not if Fury was here to talk. As he unwrapped the tape from his hands, she naturally followed, and uncoiled the tape strapped around her own knuckles.

"When we went under, the world was at war," Steve said, dumping the coils of cloth back into his bag. "We wake up, they say we won. They didn't say what we lost."

"Or that we were even remembered," Jamie added quietly. She tossed Steve her own coils of tape. He nodded to her statement, and dumped both wraps back into the bag.

"We've made some mistakes along the way," Fury admitted, pulling his hands out from behind his back to reveal a folder he was holding. "Some, very recently."

That last sentence caught Steve and Jamie's attention, and they exchanged another look before turning back to Fury.

"Are you here with a mission, sir?" Steve asked.

"I am," Fury confessed.

"Trying to get us back in the world?" Jamie guessed.

"Trying to save it."

Steve and Jamie grew even more confused by that response, but Fury's only explanation to his own statement was to hand Steve the beige file he'd been carrying. Steve took it, his quizzical expression only growing. He motioned for Jamie to sit down next to him on the bench to see, and he opened the file. The first thing that they both saw was a colored picture of a cube-like object that they both knew quite well, even though they had only encountered it one time.

"The Tesseract…" Jamie murmured with surprise. She knew this object only a little better than Steve did. Back in '45, she'd bought a book detailing all about the Norse God's, and this object, the Tesseract, was a legendary object to the God's. She wasn't an expert, though. Her knowledge came from only a couple paragraphs in the book, and nothing else.

"Hydra's secret weapon," Steve added, flipping to the next page.

"Howard Stark fished that out of the ocean when he was looking for the two of you," Fury explained. "He thought what we think. The Tesseract could be the key to unlimited sustainable energy. That's something the world sorely needs."

Steve and Jamie exchanged looks yet again, and then Steve handed the file back to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Director.

"Who took it from you?" he guessed. He and Jamie weren't stupid. They knew the only reason Fury would have come to them about this was if it had somehow been stolen.

"He's called Loki," Fury replied. "He's… not from around here."

Jamie's head snapped up upon hearing the name. "Loki?" she repeated. "You're not referring to the Norse God of Mischief, are you?"

"As a matter of fact, I am."

"You're kidding… Loki's _real?_ The Norse God's are _real?!"_

"There's a lot we'll have to bring you two up to speed on if you're both in," Fury went on, ignoring Jamie's flabbergasted questions. "The world has gotten even stranger than you two already know."

Steve scoffed at that. "At this point, I doubt anything would surprise us," he muttered, getting to his feet and signaling for Jamie to do the same. She nodded to him, and hopped off the bench.

"Ten bucks says you're wrong," Fury gambled.

Steve and Jamie both ignored him. Jamie was collecting the training bag, and Steve was hoisting one of the punching bags over his shoulder. They started walking away from Fury and back to the locker rooms.

"There's a debriefing packet waiting for you two back at your apartment," Fury called after them. "Is there anything either of you can tell us about the Tesseract that we ought to know now?"

As they walked away, Steve and Jamie shared a smirk.

"You should have left it in the ocean," said Steve.

"Chuck it back into it when this is all over," said Jamie.


	2. The Return of Liberty Belle

**I'm so glad that I finally finished this chapter. It was a bit of pain to write, as not much regarding to the plot of Jamie's story happens in it. More of that stuff happens in the next chapter. That's not to say that nothing relevant to Jamie being included in the Avengers happens at all. One important thing happens during the big battle scene. I won't say anything further. I don't want to spoil anything so read for yourself and see.**

 **My favorite part of this chapter is at the very end. I was laughing as I wrote it. It's important because of something that happens in the next chapter, but I still laughed while writing it. I hope I read something in the reviews about it!**

 **Speaking of reviews, let me stop and thanks all the reviewers for chapter one:**

 **\- ZabuzasGirl**

 **\- Cameo M. Wolf**

 **\- DragonessGem**

 **\- storiesarebetter**

 **\- kidamerica123**

 **Please, keep leaving reviews! They encourage me to write and make me so happy that people are willing to comment on this story!**

 **Disclaimer for Liberty Belle: The Avengers Assemble is available in chapter one.**

 **Happy Reading!**

* * *

 **Chapter Two: The Return of Liberty Belle**

Jamie was bouncing up and down excitedly in her seat beside Steve, her brother's pocket watch swinging wildly about around her neck. They were in a Quinjet, flying across the blue ocean waters on their way to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top-secret base. She didn't understand fully what was going on exactly and what her and Steve's mission entailed, but she couldn't stop smiling. She was flying again. She loved to fly, and considering that the last time she'd been on a plane she was trying to stop a madman from releasing a series of mini atomic bombs along the Eastern Coast of the United States back in 1945, she was glad she was back up in the air again. She wanted to make new flying memories.

Twenty-four hours ago, after she and Steve had been asked by Fury to partake in this mission to retrieve the Tesseract, they'd gone back home to their apartment and looked through the debriefing packet that other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had dropped off.

Then they discussed the pros and cons of getting involved.

"I'm not sure if we should get involved in this, Jamie."

"Fury asked for our help, though. He asked us to help."

"Yes, he _asked_ for our help. He didn't _order_ us to help. It's not the same thing as it was in the army. We have a choice. We can just tell him no."

"But why, Steve? If we have the power to help stop this Loki guy from getting away with the Tesseract, we should help!"

Steve had been very reluctant. He had no qualms against helping Fury himself, but it was bringing Jamie with him on this mission that he was uncomfortable with. He wasn't sure if it was a good idea to put her back out into the line of fire. If he had had his way back in 1945, she wouldn't have even gone into the final battle against the Red Skull at all. Her mentality was a little bit unclear. At this exact moment, she seemed fine, but who was to say she wouldn't be in a bad place again tomorrow? She'd been all over the place with her emotions right before their final battle against the Red Skull, and he'd been worried that she wouldn't be able to keep her feelings in check during the fight.

She'd technically proven him wrong, but who was to say that she wouldn't have a mental breakdown while on this mission? If, God forbid, she suddenly snapped while in the middle of a fight, she could be killed. After everything that happened with her kidnapping incident, which he'd still yet to know fully what had happened to her, he took his protégé's safety very seriously. He wasn't sure if it was a good idea to bring her with him or not.

Jamie had seemed to read his thought process, because she immediately began begging him to let her go.

"Please, Steve! I want to go and help! We're Captain America and Liberty Belle! We made a promise to always help people! So please! _Please_ let me help!"

It took a lot of pleading from Jamie, but Steve eventually conceded. He still hadn't been entirely convinced it was a good idea, but he had to admit that it had been a long time since he'd seen her get excited about something. If doing this mission allowed Jamie to start acting like her normal self again, he'd let her tag along. It was a step in the right direction in getting her life back on track once again.

Steve had called Fury later that night, and politely informed him that he and Jamie were in. Fury told them that a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent would come and collect them early the next morning, and that they'd better pack their bags and be prepared to leave right away when the agent came. Whatever was going on involving the disappearance of the Tesseract, it had made him desperate, it seemed. Steve and Jamie really didn't have all that much to pack. Just fresh sets of clothes, really, but Jamie had also brought along her stuffed animals and two of her books: _Peter Pan_ and _Norse Gods: Real or Not Real?_ Pannie and Gigi were two items she would not leave behind in their apartment, no matter how much Steve had insisted that they weren't really all that important. She was bringing them along for comfort, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. Her copy of _Peter Pan_ she probably should have left behind, but she wanted to keep reading it in whatever downtime they might have over the next few days, but the Norse mythology book she only brought along because she wanted to brush up on her facts about Loki, and any other God's that may suddenly pop up out of the blue. It never hurt to be prepared. She put both her books and her stuffed toys into a little backpack, and then she and Steve had gone to bed that night, though Jamie still made sure to put the gag back in place around her mouth to keep Steve from hearing her nightmares.

It was a good thing, too. That night, she had had one of her worst kinds of reoccurring nightmares. She'd been back in the cellblocks in the Hydra base, but this time, Trent was anywhere to be seen in her dream. That was partially a relief, because then, she didn't have to worry about the fact that either she was being forced to watch Trent being beaten by the other Hydra guards, did not have to deal with the fact that Trent was hurting her, or she would end up hurting him. Instead, she was just being repeatedly beaten and electrocuted over and over again. She woke up midway through the night screaming through her gag from the phantom pains.

Needless to say, it had been a rough night for her, so it wasn't much of a surprise when she woke up with dark bags around her eyes. To her dismay, Steve actually took notice of her tiredness this morning.

"Are you okay, J.J.?" he had asked her when she left her room. "You look exhausted… Did you have trouble sleeping?"

"I… I'm fine Steve," she had insisted as she went to sit beside her mentor on the couch as they waited for S.H.I.E.L.D. to send them an agent to take them to wherever they were supposed to be going for the mission. "I just… I just couldn't get comfortable last night…"

Steve frowned. He wasn't sure why, but he had a feeling that she wasn't being entirely honest with him. When he stopped and thought about it, she'd definitely been looking very, very tired in the mornings these past couple of days. What was going on with his sidekick?

"Are you sure?" he asked her. "It's just… this isn't the first time you've looked this tired. You looked a little tired yesterday, too, and the day before that…"

"I'm fine, Steve," she said a little too quickly. "It's just… I'm not used to the beds, yet. They're too weird…"

Steve was very puzzled. He admitted that the mattresses in this time were definitely different than what he was used to, but this was one difference he actually liked. They were much more comfortable to sleep on. Why was she saying that she didn't like them? He opened his mouth to ask, but at that moment, the call box for their apartment rang.

"That must be the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Fury sent," said Jamie, hopping off the couch and grabbing the backpack she'd packed the night before. "We should get going."

She ran to slip on her shoes before Steve could say anything. She didn't like having to keep lying to him, but she couldn't tell him about her nightmares. She just couldn't.

Steve's frown only grew upon watching her skittish behavior. She was hiding something. He wasn't quite sure what, but she was definitely hiding something. He'd have to pull her aside later to figure out what, though. Right now, they had to get going.

They exited their apartment and went down a couple flights of stairs to meet the agent from S.H.I.E.L.D. They could have just taken the elevator, they knew, but elevators were still futuristic devices to them. They hadn't yet made the leap to learn how to operate them quite yet. The man waiting for them beside a black car with black-tinted windows was a rather tall man with a high forehead and light brown hair, dressed up smartly in a freshly pressed black suit. His entire face lit up when he caught sight of Steve and Jamie exiting the building, and he quickly waved them over.

Steve and Jamie were a little perturbed by the excited smile on the agent's face, but they didn't worry too much on it. He was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. The one who would be escorting them. He was one of the good guys. They had nothing to fear from him, although Jamie's shy and nervousness upon meeting new people in general made her naturally move slightly behind her mentor upon seeing the agent. Steve didn't mind. He just took her hand and gave it a quick squeeze before motioning her to follow him over to the man so they could get going.

"Hi," said Steve to the unknown agent. "I take it Fury sent you to collect us?"

The man had nodded. "I'm Agent Phil Coulson," he said, extending his palm. "Fury's right-hand man."

Steve shook his hand. "Steve Rogers, but I'm assuming you already know that."

"Oh, yes!" said Coulson quickly and excitedly, but then he saw the startled look on Steve's face, and quickly calmed himself. "Yes," he said, a bit normally now than before. "Yes, I know who you are."

Having formally introduced himself to Steve, Coulson glanced down at Jamie, but Jamie would not come out to properly greet him. She had completely hidden herself behind Steve's back, and was still squeezing Steve's hand tightly in her own as she spared peeking looks at Coulson from around Steve every few moments before promptly hiding herself again.

"She's a little shy," Steve quickly explained. "It takes her a while to open up to people she doesn't know."

"Ah, I see," said Coulson understandingly. Not caring at all that they were standing on the pavement of a sidewalk of New York City, Coulson then bent down on one knee in front of Jamie, and smiled to her.

"You're Jamie, right?" he asked her kindly. "Jamie Harper?"

It took Jamie a couple moments of deliberating the question before wordlessly nodding.

Coulson smiled to her. "It's nice to meet you," he said nicely. "You can call me Phil."

He offered her his hand. For a long moment, it seemed as though Jamie wouldn't say anything or accept the handshake, but then she moved out slightly from behind Steve, and hesitantly shook his hand.

"H-hi…" she mumbled quietly.

Coulson smiled at her, and patted her head before standing back up to address Steve.

"She's a cutie," he told her mentor. "Anyway, we better get going. Fury is expecting us."

Steve and Jamie nodded in agreement, and quickly shuffled inside the waiting car. Coulson then drove them out of the main part of the city and toward the airport, but instead of flying on a commercial plane, he and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. had arranged for a team of other agents to fly a private armored Quinjet that would then take them to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secret headquarters. And that was where Steve and Jamie were now.

Upon boarding the Quinjet, Steve and Jamie had both been given electronic devices that were filled with files, short videos, and profiles on not only what was known about Loki and the Tesseract, but of various other people as well.

As Jamie sat beside Steve in the Quinjet with Pannie and Gigi on her lap, she and Steve skimmed through the contents of all the people listed. Two people that were at the top of the list had been two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents that the Norse God had brainwashed while stealing the Tesseract. The first was a man by the name of Doctor Erik Selvig. He had apparently been the lead scientist in charge of understanding how the Tesseract functioned, and had been a member of the first group of people alongside a well known astrophysicist called Jane Foster and her friend and intern Darcy Lewis that had encountered Loki's brother when he first came to earth the year before, Thor, the Norse demi-God of thunder and lightning. Jamie read the notes and videos pertaining to both Thor and Selvig with rapt attention. The Norse God's were of great interest to the little girl.

The other man taken was a longtime top S.H.I.E.L.D. agent by the name of Clinton Barton, Clint for short, and codenamed Hawkeye. He was apparently a master archer and assassin, and he had been in charge of guarding both Doctor Selvig and the Tesseract before Loki had brainwashed them both and stolen it. What was even more interesting was that he'd also personally met Thor before when he first came to earth, as he'd been in charge of guarding the compound that Thor's mystical hammer Mjolnir had been built around while S.H.I.E.L.D. tried to study it, not knowing it was Thor's and that he had lost it.

There were other files, too, on other people that had been called in like the two of them to try and find Loki and the Cube. While Steve and Jamie already knew about Tony Stark due to the file Fury had given them earlier, there were other people that were interesting to them on the list. One was of another assassin, a young woman with vividly flaming red curly hair by the name of Natasha Romanoff, otherwise known as Black Widow. She apparently had changed allegiances from being a Russian spy many years ago, and had been recruited by Clint when he was actually given a mission to assassinate her. Thanks to his kindness, she was now one of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s top spies, and Clint's best friend. Upon learning that he had been brainwashed by the enemy, Natasha had apparently dropped everything in order to help S.H.I.E.L.D. find him.

However, as interesting as her backstory was, the person that really grabbed Steve and Jamie's attention even more than Thor had was the final person on the list: Doctor Bruce Banner. According to his file, he had once been a simple professor at a university, but many years back, he and a bunch of other scientists had tried to recreate the super-soldier serum developed by Doctor Abraham Erskine back in World War II that had made Steve and Jamie what they were today by using gamma rays instead of vita rays. Due to over exposure to the rays, the experiment went haywire, and Bruce had instead been transformed into a great rage-fueled and mindless giant green humanoid behemoth monster otherwise known as The Hulk. He would always convert back to being a regular human being after awhile once he calmed down, but should he get enraged or provoked, he would turn into the beast once again. There were reports all detailing how he tried to stay on the run from both S.H.I.E.L.D. and the government for several years now so as to keep himself from possibly hurting anyone else, but S.H.I.E.L.D. had managed to track him down a few days ago from where he'd been working as a regular physician in India, and recruited him for this mission simply because of his knowledge of gamma rays, and the Tesseract emitted gamma ray signatures that would be too weak for anyone other than him to trace. Despite his condition, he was essential to locating the Cube.

Steve and Jamie were interrupted from their readings by one pilot's in the cockpit calling out to Coulson.

"We're about ten miles out from home base, sir," said the lead pilot.

Coulson nodded in reply, and removed the headphone's he'd been wearing to communicate quietly with S.H.I.E.L.D. headquarters before moving to stand beside the two super-soldiers. He was grinning at the two of them eagerly. He couldn't believe that he was on board with the legendary Captain America and Liberty Belle. They'd been his childhood heroes while growing up, and he was still a major fan of the Dynamic Duo. He really wanted to befriend them.

Steve saw him walk closer, and spoke up.

"So," he said, glancing down at the electronic file in his hand, "this Doctor Banner was trying to replicate the different serums they used on Jamie and me?"

Coulson nodded. "A lot of people were," he answered. "You two were the world's first superheroes. Banner thought gamma radiation might hold the key to unlocking Erskine's original formula."

"He should have tried vita rays. Vita rays were what made Doctor Erskine's experiment on us successful," said Jamie, watching a short video in Bruce's profile that showed him as The Hulk. As the video progressed, it showed The Hulk's emotions overruling his head, and the green monstrosity was in a complete fit of rage. He was ramming anything in his path out of his way with his enormously oversized hands, and anybody that tried to stop and detain him would be flung several yards away without any second thought. Bullets that were shot at the beast weren't even felt at all. The Hulk was truly a ferocious creature when enraged.

Steve nodded as he glanced over at the video she was watching over her shoulder. "Yeah. Didn't really go his way, did it?" he muttered.

"Not so much," Coulson agreed. "When he's not that thing, though, the guy's like a Stephen Hawking."

Steve and Jamie both looked up from their devices and stared at Coulson for a moment before exchanging confused looks. Neither of them had any idea who that was. It took Coulson a moment to realize this.

"He's like a… smart person," he briefly explained.

Steve and Jamie just looked at each other again, still a bit confused, but then they both shrugged and turned back to their individual devices. They didn't quite understand what made this Hawking person so smart to deserve a reference from Coulson, but it didn't really matter. They already didn't understand most references that were made by normal people of the twenty-first century on a day-to-day basis, and neither of them currently felt like asking Coulson to be more specific. They wanted to stay focused on the assignment.

Coulson, however, wanted to continue talking to them.

"I gotta say, it's an honor to meet both of you officially," he began gushing.

Steve and Jamie both looked back up at him and smiled in acknowledgement. They didn't mind hearing that.

"I've sort of met you two," he went on. "I mean, I watched you while you were both sleeping."

The two super-soldiers weren't really sure what to make of that last bit. Steve blinked at Coulson while Jamie automatically scooted slightly away from him in her seat so she'd be closer to Steve. Coulson gulped, suddenly realizing how strange his words must have sounded to the two of them.

"I mean, I was… I was present while you were both unconscious from the ice," he quickly explained.

Steve chose not to reply to Coulson's sheepish attempt to redeem himself. He just stood up and walked up to the cockpit of the Quinjet in an attempt to try getting away from him. The guy was nice, but he wanted some space. Seeing him leave, Jamie quickly hopped off her seat and followed him with her stuffed toys in the crooks of either of her arms, as did Coulson, who was quickly continuing to speak.

"You know, it's really just a huge honor to have both of you on board this…"

"T-thank you," said Jamie, still feeling a little shy around the man. He was strange, but had still been rather nice to her.

"I hope Jamie and I are right for the job," said Steve, stilling not paying Coulson too much attention.

"Oh, you both are. Absolutely," Coulson said quickly. "We made some modifications to the uniforms. I had a little design input."

This surprised Steve and Jamie, and they both gave Coulson their full and undivided attention. Neither of them had thought they'd be wearing their old Captain America and Liberty Belle outfits again while on the mission.

"We're getting our old uniforms back?" said Jamie, rapidly blinking with surprise.

"Yeah," Steve agreed, equally puzzled. "Aren't the stars and stripes a little…" he paused for a moment, trying to find the right word as to what he and his apprentice were both thinking. "… old-fashioned?"

Coulson just smiled in return. "With everything that's happening and the things that are about to come to light, people might just need a little old-fashioned."

Neither Steve or Jamie had any reply to Coulson's words, but they were spared from having to think up some kind of a response, because one of the pilot's up front in the cockpit suddenly turned around in his seat so as to look at all three of them.

"Sir," he called out to Agent Coulson. "We've reached the ship."

Upon hearing these words, Steve and Jamie both automatically moved away from Coulson and peered out the front windshield behind the pilot's seat. Their little Quinjet was rapidly descending down upon what appeared to look like some type of military sea vessel. The entire deck had been designed to act as a landing pad and runway for other Quinjet's like the one they were currently riding in. People were rushing about across the large yellow S.H.I.E.L.D. insignia of a yellow eagle in a badge on the deck; some were there to signal for when it was safe for other planes to either take off or land on the boat, and others were directing other S.H.I.E.L.D. employees to where it was safe for them to stand at.

The pilot's took their time landing their Quinjet, as they needed to make sure that they landed not only in the exact center of the ship where a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent decked out all in orange was directing them to, but also so that there was no bouncing to be felt by the passengers as they hovered down upon the ground once again. The doors to the Quinjet soon opened after a few moments, and Steve moved to give Jamie her backpack, which she quickly shrugged on over her shoulders before they followed Coulson outside and onto the landing pad of the boat, though Jamie was squeezing Pannie and Gigi to her chest the entire time as they did.

The landing pad was very, very busy. S.H.I.E.L.D. employees were running about everywhere, and Jamie felt rather nervous. She quickly moved Gigi to be in the same arm as Pannie so she could grab hold of Steve's hand. She was a bit overwhelmed by their surroundings. Steve felt her take his hand and shuffle closer to him, and quickly glanced down to give her a small smile of encouragement.

"It's okay," he whispered to her as some other men wearing all yellow approached Coulson. "There's nothing to fear."

"Y-yeah, I know," she mumbled quietly.

Coulson hadn't noticed their quick exchange. The woman with short, bright red hair that was dressed in a black jumpsuit and walking up to him, Steve, and Jamie had diverted his attention. It was the same woman that Steve and Jamie had read about in the electronic files during their flight here. Natasha Romanoff, a.k.a., the Black Widow.

"Stow the Captain's and Lieutenant's gear," he quickly ordered the nearby crewmen before turning to face Natasha.

"Yes, sir," both men replied. One of them ran inside the Quinjet to get the main luggage that Steve and Jamie had packed, but the other stayed behind to try and take Jamie's backpack and plush toys away. She allowed him to take her backpack, but wouldn't let him grab Pannie and Gigi.

"Mine!" she said, hugging her toys to her chest as she ran around behind Steve to prevent him from taking away her stuffed animals.

"Kid," said the crewman. "I'm just taking them inside to yours and the Captain's room."

"No!" she said, shaking her head frantically. She wasn't going to be separated from her plushy's.

"It's all right," said Steve quickly. "I'll personally deal with her toys later."

The crewman shrugged. "Suit yourself," he said, and then vanished inside the mini-plane to assist the other crewman with the rest of their bags.

Even though he left, Jamie still stuck behind Steve, as Natasha Romanoff was still standing there and had watched the entire exchange. She didn't look mad or upset about the little girls' insistence to keep her plushy's, but more intrigued by her in general. Jamie didn't dare peek around Steve to look at her. She was too shy.

Steve and Coulson both glanced down at her for a moment, but then gave Natasha their full attention.

"Agent Romanoff," said Coulson, nodding to the redheaded woman before him, and then nodding his head in Steve and Jamie's general direction beside him. "Captain Rogers and Lieutenant Harper."

Steve nodded politely to Natasha. "Ma'am," he greeted.

"Hi," she replied.

All three grownups looked down at Jamie, but just like when she met Coulson, she was just peeking sparingly out around Steve's midsection every few seconds so as to look at Natasha before hiding herself again.

Steve nudged her forward a bit. "Go ahead, J.J.," he urged her nicely. "Say hello."

Very slowly, Jamie stepped out from around him so as to stay closely glued to his side, but had her attention focused down at her feet as she did, and still hugging Pannie and Gigi tightly. After a couple moments, she looked up at Natasha with pink cheeks.

"H-hello…" she said hesitantly. "I'm… I'm Jamie…"

Natasha smiled at her. "It's nice to meet you, Jamie," she said kindly. "But I'm afraid no one's introduced me to your friends."

Seeing Jamie's puzzled expression, she pointed at the plushy's in her arms.

"Oh, well… this one's Pannie—" she held up the panda bear for a moment "—and this one's Gigi…" she held up the black cat.

"Hello, Pannie, Gigi," she said kindly.

Jamie smiled, and moved a bit closer to Natasha. No one had ever asked to be introduced to her toys before. She definitely liked Natasha a lot more now.

Steve smiled upon the small interaction, and nodded appreciatively to the woman once she looked back up for helping make Jamie feel more at ease. Natasha nodded in return, and then turned to look at Coulson.

"They need you on the bridge," she told him. "They're starting the face trace."

Coulson nodded in reply. "See you there," he murmured, and quickly ran off in the direction of the bridge.

"B-bye, Phil!" Jamie called out after him.

As soon as he was gone, Natasha smiled at her and Steve again, and motioned for them to follow her away from the Quinjet. Steve made sure to take hold of one of Jamie's hands to make sure she stayed with them before following the former Russian assassin.

"It was quite the buzz around here, finding the two of you in the ice," Natasha told them as they walked down the runway of the launch pad. "I thought Coulson was gonna swoon."

"Phil seems nice," Jamie commented briefly. "A little weird, maybe, but still nice."

Steve beamed and let go of his protégé's hand for a moment to ruffle her hair. She lightly giggled, and smiled up at him as Natasha smirked.

"Did he ask you two to sign his Captain America and Liberty Belle trading cards yet?" she asked knowingly.

Jamie just stared at her, blinking repeatedly as she processed that information. Steve however just chuckled a bit.

"Trading cards?" he asked, slightly amused.

Natasha nodded, her smirk only growing as she answered him. "They're vintage. He's very proud."

For the first time in a long time, Jamie actually fully laughed. Steve smiled at her amusement, and wrapped an arm over her shoulders. He was glad she was acting a bit happier again.

Natasha led the former Dynamic Duo over toward another Quinjet that had just landed. There was a mid-sized, dark-haired man in a gray suit disembarking from it. Although they'd personally never met him before, Steve and Jamie knew at once who he was from having looked at his profile just a couple minutes prior to arriving on the boat.

"Doctor Banner," said Steve, keeping his arm firmly locked around Jamie's shoulders so she wouldn't try to hide again. Jamie tensed up a bit from being prevented from hiding, but she didn't break out of his grip.

Bruce Banner turned around from hearing his name being called, and finally noticed Steve and Jamie approaching with Natasha.

"Oh, yeah, hi," said Bruce politely, taking a moment to shake Steve's hand in greeting. "They told me you'd both be coming." He looked down at Jamie, and offered her his hand to shake.

It took Jamie a moment to do so, having to have to shift Pannie and Gigi into one arm.

"N-nice to meet you," she said, trying to resist the urge to run and hide behind Steve again.

Bruce frowned at the small stutter, having misinterpreted its reason for being there at all. He looked up sadly at Steve.

"Is she… well… is she scared of…?"

"She's not afraid of you," said Steve at once. "She's just naturally shy when first meeting people."

"I'm… I'm sorry…" Jamie said sadly. She hadn't meant to insult him.

Bruce, upon hearing the reason for her stutter, was immediately not offended at all. He quickly smiled down kindly to the little girl.

"Shy, huh?" the mild-mannered doctor asked her.

Jamie just blushed and nodded before promptly burying her rosy red face into Steve's brown leather jacket. She was embarrassed that she was that easy to read.

Steve chuckled at his protégé's embarrassment, and ran his hand through her hair for a moment before wrapping his arm back around her shoulder again to calm her down. Then looked back up at Bruce.

"Word is, you can find the Cube," he said.

Upon hearing Steve's words, Bruce grimaced, looking more than a tad bit uncomfortable. "Is that the only word on me?" he asked rather nervously.

"Only word Jamie and I care about," Steve calmly deflected.

Bruce nodded appreciatively at his response. He was definitely glad to know that Steve and Jamie didn't judge him for what the beast inside him had done in the past. He glanced around him at all the hustle and bustle going on involving the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as they worked on the deck.

"It must be strange for the two of you, all of this," he said off-handedly.

To Bruce's surprise, both Steve and Jamie shrugged and shook their heads. Because truth be told, this only looked slightly different to the military airfields that they'd been on back when they'd lived in the 40's.

"Well, this is actually kind of familiar," said Steve, not looking at the esteemed scientist, but rather had his eyes focused on a small platoon of men as they ran laps around the deck as a drill sergeant barked at them all to not slack off.

Jamie saw the men that Steve was watching, and she too nodded in agreement. "I… I agree," she said. "It's a bit like home…"

Natasha hadn't said anything during this time. She'd had her hand pressed up to the earpiece in her ear and had been listening to a message play to her from Fury. Upon hearing his words, she quickly turned to the three newcomers.

"Gentlemen, miss," she said, diverting all three sets of eyes back to her. None of the adults noticed how Jamie flinched a bit when she heard herself be referred to as 'miss.' None of them were aware that being referred to as such reminded her of what the Hydra guards had done to her in that cellblock in the days of her kidnapping. They always called her 'Miss Liberty Belle.' She didn't like being referred to as 'miss' now. "You might want to step inside in a minute. It's going to get a little hard to breathe."

Steve, Jamie, and Bruce all stared quizzically at the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, unsure of what she meant by that. They had no time to ask her, though, as the ground beneath them was suddenly rumbling hard and loudly. The ship was doing something. What, they didn't know.

"Is this a submarine?" Steve asked curiously.

"We're going underwater?" said Jamie, not stuttering or pausing as she spoke this time. She was too intrigued.

Bruce, on the other hand, was scoffing. "Really?" he asked. "They want me in a submerged, pressurized, metal container?"

Natasha said nothing as the two adult men and the little girl moved toward the edge of the landing pad to see what was going on. She already knew what was happening, and she wanted to see their reactions. All three of them were wrong, after all.

To the astonishment of all three of the newcomers, the ship was not sinking rapidly beneath the ocean waves, but rather, there was a great vortex of water swirling around the ship so fast, the water had changed to look white instead of blue. As seconds ticked past, all three of them realized that the ship was not moving down into the water at all. Instead, it was rising steadily up to reveal that there were four oversized turbines that had been hiding beneath the surface of the waves, and all four of them had their propeller blades spinning about speedily in a vicious cycle as they powered up so the boat would take to the air.

No, that was wrong. This was not a boat at all.

This was a Helicarrier.

Steve and Jamie were staring in amazement as they watched the Helicarrier rise upwards. They had both believed that the _Valkyrie_ had been the most astounding plane to ever be built by human hands, despite it being Hydra-made. They'd both been wrong. _This_ definitely took the cake on the _Valkyrie._

Bruce was actually chuckling.

"No, no," he said, not even bothering to hide his amusement. "This is _much_ worse."

"We're flying…" said Jamie, pure joy spreading across her face. "We're flying!"

She started to cheer in delight as she bounced up and down in wonderment as she hugged Pannie and Gigi tightly. She loved to fly. It was one of her favorite things in the entire world, after all. This was definitely amazing to her.

Steve chuckled, and patted her head. He was so pleased she was acting like a normal child once again, and not terrified of her own shadow. Maybe he didn't have any reason to be worried about her. She might still be upset over what had happened to Trent, and she might still be having a hard time getting used to this new futuristic world, but she was smiling and laughing again. That was a step in the right direction. It was definitely progress.

As the crewmen on the deck began securing all of the Quinjet's to the landing pad so they wouldn't blow away when they took to the air, Natasha signaled for Steve, Jamie, and Bruce to follow her inside the Helicarrier. They all nodded and followed after her as the ship began steadily gaining altitude into the air. A few more minutes, and they'd be up in the clouds completely.

They all passed through a series of long hallways until they reached what appeared to be the main room of the ship, as well as probably the largest. The entire back wall was made of nothing but windows, as this was also where the ship was steered, and other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents in blue uniforms were either running about hurriedly in here as they followed whatever orders they'd been given, or sitting down at a series of large computers scattered throughout the room with headpieces on so they could communicate with people that were not on board.

Steve and Jamie both stared in awe at what they were seeing. They had both believed they'd seen everything that made up what the future was now when they first awoke two weeks ago and escaped from the New York City S.H.I.E.L.D. base and into the suburban hustle and bustle of streets of Times Square. This was nothing compared to that. What they'd seen that day had just been the average, everyday life of normal American civilians. This, however, was the day-to-day life of what agents at S.H.I.E.L.D. did as they strived to make the world into a better place. It was simply incredible.

Director Fury was standing at the main control panels to the ship, and was paying close attention to what another dark-haired woman with her hair styled in a short pixie cut was telling him about the power levels of the ship. Her nametag read Maria Hill.

"All engines operating," Hill told him. "S.H.I.E.L.D. Emergency Protocol 193.6 in effect. We are at level, sir."

"Good," said Fury, nodding in approval. "Let's vanish."

"Vanish?" Jamie repeated, looking up at Steve. Steve just shrugged. He honestly didn't know what would happen next, but whatever it was, he was sure it wouldn't cease to amaze him.

"Engage retro-reflection panels," said the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent Maria Hill to some other agents.

Fury seemed disinterested in watching the agents carry out his orders to supposedly 'vanish.' Instead, he turned around to address Steve, Jamie, and Bruce.

"Gentlemen, and Harper," he said, nodding to Steve and Bruce first before glancing down at Jamie, who had actually become brave enough to venture away from Steve a bit to glance over the railing at the agents working down below on the computers. Everything was fascinating to her. Upon hearing Fury greet her, though, she looked back over at him.

"Sir," she said. "What did you mean when you told that lady over there, 'Let's vanish'?"

"We activated a cloaking device on the entire ship. Right now, we currently are blending in with the clouds all around us."

That was all Steve needed to hear. Without even looking at Fury, as he was still drinking in the sleek technologies on display before him, he reached into the right pocket of his pants, and took out a fat wad of bills. His finger separated them until he found a ten, and he promptly handed it over to the S.H.I.E.L.D. Director.

He'd lost the bet after all. This entire ship was an amazing shock to both of the super-soldiers.

As he wandered down a short flight of stairs to look around some more at the agents typing away busily on their computers, Jamie went to sit down on the very topmost step. She began playing with her plushy's a bit as the adults spoke. At this exact moment, she was considered inconsequential to the current predicaments.

Fury had turned to greet Bruce. "Doctor," he said, extending his hand, "thank you for coming."

Bruce accepted the handshake and nodded.

"Thanks for asking nicely," he said dryly. "So, how long am I staying?"

"Once we get our hands on the Tesseract, you're in the wind."

Bruce nodded in agreement. That was fair, at the very least.

"Where are you at that?"

Both Steve and Jamie looked over at that question, but Fury was directing their attention over at Coulson. That was his field of knowledge.

"We're sweeping every wirelessly accessible camera on the planet. Cell phones, laptops… If it's connected to a satellite, it's eyes and ears for us."

Jamie dropped Pannie and Gigi upon hearing that, and looked over at Steve. He was just as stunned as she was at hearing about all the wonders of modern technology. This new world just kept surprising the two of them every minute at every twist and turn.

"That's still not gonna find them in time," Natasha spoke up.

"You have to narrow your field," Bruce stated to Fury. "How many spectrometers do you have access to?"

"What are spectrometers?" Jamie wondered quietly.

"It's a science term," Bruce replied, waving aside her innocent question. "Don't worry about it, kid. Now, how many do you have access to?"

"How many are there?" Fury asked.

"Call every lab you know," said Bruce at once. "Tell them to put the spectrometers on the roof and calibrate them for gamma rays. I'll rough out a tracking algorithm, basic cluster recognition. At least we could rule out a few places."

As Fury nodded approvingly, Steve and Jamie just shared confused looks. Neither of them had the slightest clue as to what he'd just said. Those science terms were way over either of their heads. No one noticed. Everyone was still paying attention to Bruce, who was shrugging out of the jacket of his suit to reveal the purple buttoned down shirt underneath.

"Do you have somewhere for me to work?" he asked Fury.

Fury turned to Natasha.

"Agent Romanoff, could you show Doctor Banner to his laboratory, please?"

Natasha nodded, and waved Bruce over as she led him towards the doors leading off to the main hallways on the ship.

"You're gonna love it, Doc," she said. "We got all the toys."

As soon as they were gone, Steve turned to Fury.

"Sir, what should Jamie and I do in the meantime?"

"Stick around," Fury advised. "We don't know when Loki or Barton will pop up, but when they do, we'll need you two out on battlefield."

"In that case, Steve, do you mind if I go find our room so I can get my book?" Jamie asked, standing up and looking over at her mentor.

Steve nodded, and shrugged out of his own brown leather jacket. "Go ahead. Could you take my jacket with you?"

"Sure. I'll be back in a little bit."

She returned almost twenty minutes later, with a rather sour expression on her face and as she carried only Pannie in one hand and her copy of _Peter Pan_ in the other.

"What took you so long?" Steve asked her.

"The ship itself! This place is like a giant maze! I got lost!" she grumbled, plopping herself back down on the top seat of the stairs and putting Pannie on her lap as she opened her book to the page she'd marked off to know where she left off.

Not much had happened during her absence. The other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents had just continued their diligent search for the Tesseract, and were continuing to search for Loki, Clint, and Selvig via facial recognition software from every wirelessly accessible camera across the globe. Steve really didn't understand half of what any of them were doing, and he wasn't entirely sure if he really wanted to. All this futuristic mumbo-jumbo stuff was way over his head, and he had a feeling if he asked anyone to explain it to him, he still wouldn't understand it.

Regardless, though, Jamie was his responsibility, and he didn't approve of her reading on the floor. He marched up to her.

"If you want to read, Jamie, go and sit at that table over there," he instructed, gesturing in the direction of a large, circular black conference table off in the back of the room.

"If I sit over there, I can't hear anything that's going on," she told him.

Steve opened his mouth to tell her that he'd come and get her if something turned up regarding the whole Tesseract mess, but Phil Coulson had noticed her return to the main room, and was strolling up to them.

Jamie quickly got to her feet and shut her book as Steve pretended to be watching the display panels that were running the facial recognition programs. Coulson seemed nice, but after hearing from Natasha that he had an entire trading card collection of them… they couldn't help but feel a bit odd around him.

"Hey," he greeted. "Do you mind if I ask you both something?"

"Is it about us signing your trading cards later?" Jamie innocently, but still accurately guessed.

Coulson blinked, surprised that she already knew about that.

"What? How — How do you—?"

"Natasha told us about it," she told him.

"Oh, well… I mean, if it's not too much trouble…"

"No, no," answered Steve. "It's fine."

"Later on, though," said Jamie.

Coulson nodded. "It's a vintage set," he told them. "It took me a couple of years to collect them all. Near mint."

Jamie couldn't help but laugh a bit at that. Coulson looked a bit embarrassed.

"Slight foxing around the edges, but—"

"We got a hit! A sixty-seven percent match," shouted one of the other agents suddenly. All heads in the room immediately turned to look in his direction, but more importantly, at his computer. "Wait. Cross match, seventy-nine percent!"

Coulson immediately postponed his conversation with Steve and Jamie and strolled over to his computer to check.

"Location?" he asked.

"Stuttgart, Germany," the agent replied. "Twenty-eight Konigstrasse. He's not exactly hiding."

Steve and Jamie both walked over to get a closer look. There was a grainy video playing on the computer screen, showing footage of a greasy, dark-haired pale man with a long nose and pointy chin strolling along casually through the streets of Germany. It was nighttime there, and streetlamps were all alight. The man known as Loki was wearing a black suit and evening coat and scarf as he wandered casually up towards a majestic building that looked suspiciously like a museum.

What could the Norse God of Mischief want there?

"Captain, Libby," said Fury, and Steve and Jamie both turned around to look at him. "You're both up."

Steve and Jamie both nodded.

"Where do we suit up?" Steve asked.

"Head down the hall and take the first right. It'll be the third door on the left."

Steve and Jamie both nodded, and immediately headed off to find their newly improved uniforms, pausing only momentarily for Jamie to deposit her book and panda bear on the conference table Steve had pointed out earlier before leaving.

"Do you think we're strong enough, Steve?" Jamie asked as they walked down the hall to the room that Fury had told them was where their newly improved uniforms were. "I mean, we've only fought against the Red Skull's lackeys and the Red Skull himself… He may have thought he was on par with the God's, but he was just a wannabe… He wasn't the real deal. Loki is…"

Steve patted her head. "Don't go doubting yourself, J.J.," he told her. "We're the Dynamic Duo, after all. There's no way in hell we're going to let Loki win."

"Swear word, Steve!" she admonished with a smile, lightly punching his arm as they approached the room Fury had told them to go to.

Steve laughed as he opened the door. It had been a long time since he heard his young apprentice chide him for his language. That laughter however died away as soon as he and Steve took a good look inside this room, and at the two uniforms that were waiting on display in the cases of glass.

The first costume was large enough to fit an adult man. It was a one-piece ensemble, the majority of which was almost completely bright blue except for the sleeves; those were white, and the entire section around the stomach region shifted back and forth with red and white stripes. There was also a pair of bright red boots and gloves, and on the chest area of the uniform, there was a large white star. And hanging off on either side of the costume, there was a bright blue matching cowl with a white letter 'A' stamped across it, and a very large and strong circular shield that had been painted in a red, white, and blue stripe pattern and had white star in its exact center.

The other uniform was a little sleeveless knee-length dress that was only big enough to clothe a small child. It was made of matching blue material to the first uniform because just like the man's uniform, it, too, had a large white star on its chest region. Along the sides of it there were single red stripes, and they nicely complimented the elbow-length red gloves and knee-length red boots that went along with the costume. The dress' pleated skirt was also bright blue, and would shift back and forth to white with every other pleat. On one side of the costume, there was a spiked crown and a small blue mask, and on the other, there was small, silver torch.

Steve and Jamie smiled when they saw the improvements made to their old uniforms.

It was time to suit up.

It was time to become Captain America and Liberty Belle once again.

* * *

The flight from the Helicarrier to Germany on the Quinjet was relatively quick. The mini planes had been designed to reach over a hundred miles per hour in a matter of minutes after all. Steve and Jamie were the only passengers on the little jet, and Natasha was the pilot. As they flew across the time zones between America to Germany, Steve and Jamie went over their plan of attack.

"Now Jamie, repeat the plan to me one more time."

"First of all, Captain, it's _Liberty Belle_ while I'm in uniform! How many times do I have to always remind you of that! Secondly, we've gone over the plan at least a hundred times by now! Is it really necessary to say it again?"

Natasha laughed from her place in the cockpit.

"Why do you insist he calls you only Liberty Belle when you're in costume, Jamie?" she asked curiously.

"You're not exempt from calling me Liberty either right now, Black Widow! Don't refer to me as Jamie right now! And it's because I want to maintain my secret identity! That's important for heroes!"

"Liberty!" said Steve quickly before Natasha could reply to what Jamie had said. "Focus!"

"Sorry, Cap."

"Good. And yes, it's necessary to say the plan at least one more time."

Jamie huffed. "Fine," she muttered, and then began reciting the plan. "The two of us will get off the plane and wait in the shadows outside the museum until we get a clear shot of Loki on the street. We make sure he attempts to harm someone before getting involved, and during which time we'll detain him."

"And why are we going to wait until he does something?"

"Because if we attack him before he attacks someone else, it can be considered as him acting in self-defense and not us trying to stop him from hurting someone," she answered.

"Correct."

"We're zeroing in on Stuttgart," called Natasha over her shoulder.

The Quinjet plane discreetly descended down on a somewhat deserted dark alley in the center of the city directly across the street from Loki's last known whereabouts outside the museum. None of them knew what Loki wanted with the museum, but Steve and Jamie would have to stick to the shadows for the time being until they found him outside again. Not only did they not want Loki to know they were here, but should they wander around casually in the middle of the street in their Captain America and Liberty Belle uniforms, innocent civilians would know something was going on.

The last thing any of them wanted to do was cause a panic.

Natasha activated the control panel as the plane stealthily touched the ground in the alley, and clicked the button so as to open the main door.

"Get back up in the sky," Steve instructed Natasha. "If this thing has guns, be ready to fire them once Liberty and I begin the attack."

"Roger, Cap," said Natasha.

Steve and Jamie quietly disembarked as they carried their old weapons — old friends, really — along with them, and as soon as soon as they were a couple feet away from the Quinjet, the doors slid shut, and the plane took to the air once again.

"Where should we hide, Captain?"

"Follow me."

Steve beckoned for Jamie to follow him to the entrance to the alleyway, but he did not allow her to exit it. As soon as she began getting too close to the light from the nearby streetlamps for his comfort, the arm not holding up his shield arm quickly shot out and barred her path. He shook his head to her and pressed a finger to his lips.

"We stay here and wait," he whispered. "I'm not sure how long we're going to be sitting here, Libby, but be ready to jump onto my back in a moments notice if need be."

Jamie nodded in understanding, and clutched her torch tightly in her hand as she stood readily behind Steve to wait for any sign of distress from the general population that would tell them that Loki had made his move. She had to admit, it felt nice to be reunited with her torch. When she held her vibranium metal weapon that could spit out fire in her hand, she did not feel like Jamie Harper anymore. Instead, she felt as though she truly did become Liberty Belle, the brave heroine that fought for truth, justice, and the American way. That was a bit of a strange thought to her actually, because she and Liberty Belle were not two different girls. They were both her. There wasn't supposed to be a difference between herself as a normal girl and who she was when she donned her blue mask.

Who was the girl anymore who was standing beside Steve, otherwise known as Captain America?

Jamie Elizabeth Harper, the orphaned girl with no family to speak of?

Or Liberty Belle, the so-called hero back in World War II that had dismissed the life of her older brother in order to save herself?

Was it possible she was thinking these questions because she was going crazy?

The questions were mind-boggling.

Jamie fought the urge to slap herself from thinking these thoughts. Not only did she firmly believe that she was not crazy, but she also couldn't dwell on that thought right now. She had to stay focused. Loki could turn up at any moment and make his attack. She couldn't allow herself to get distracted by thinking about this.

Sure enough, a couple minutes later there were panicked screams resounding from the main entrance to the museum. There must have been some sort of party or gala going on that Loki crashed, because men spiffed up in evening wear tuxedos and women dressed splendidly in beautifully sparkling floor-length gowns and glittering jewels all began scrambling out from the main entrance. Innocent pedestrians on the street didn't have a clue what was going on, but when one of them stopped to ask one of the party-goers what was happening, the party-goer would not stop, and would all but trample them down in their haste to get away.

One man, however, was not rushing out of the building as though the devil was on his heels. Instead, he was walking out calmly with a very obvious smirk on his face. He was carrying some sort of strange, unusual pointed scepter that let off a glowing blue hue. Steve and Jamie did not even have to watch as his tuxedo slowly transformed into some type of otherworldly armor of emerald green and pure gold with a matching golden horned helmet and green cape to know who it was.

"Loki!" said Jamie, clutching her torch tightly.

"Get on my back, Liberty," Steve instructed her. "We'll be making our move at any second now."

Jamie nodded, and climbed up onto her mentor's back as Loki effortlessly let out a blast of blue energy towards an approaching car with his staff as he unhurriedly strolled toward the panicked mob. The car completely flipped around in mid-air, and then landed upside down onto the road and continued moving forward.

"Look at that!" Jamie muttered, her eyes wide. "The scepter! It's… It's like a…"

"Like a Hydra weapon," Steve nodded in agreement, keeping his eyes firmly locked on the demi-God villain as he spoke. "That's exactly what I was thinking."

They didn't say anything else. They continued to quietly observe from the sidelines as holographic projections of Loki suddenly appeared and began circling the crowd of both the partygoers and the innocent people on the street. People began screaming even louder than before upon seeing the copies of Loki pop up all around them, and instinctively backed away from both the original Norse God and all of his duplicates.

The original Loki stepped forward.

"Kneel before me," he ordered the crowd.

But the people did not kneel. They were all in the frenzy, and almost didn't seem to comprehend what he had just told them.

Loki did not like that.

"I said—" he and the other replicas banged their rods on the ground, and blue energy erupted around them. "—kneel!"

Too terrified of the mysterious being before them to resist, the crowd slowly maneuvered themselves downward into terrified kneeling positions. Their faces displayed both horror and fear. No one dared not to do as Loki said.

Loki smirked in approval, and began to slowly weave his way through the crowd as he began to speak.

"Is not this simpler?" he said haughtily as he moved in between the gaps between the people. People tensed up in fear as he passed. "Is this not your natural state? It's the unspoken truth of humanity, that you crave subjugation. The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life's joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity. You were made to be ruled. In the end, you will always kneel."

"He's nuts!" Jamie hissed lightly.

Steve shushed her quiet, as something unexpected was happening: an old man in a beige raincoat was defying Loki's orders and standing to his feet. He was actively glaring at the demi-God.

"Not to men like you," he said in a strong, clear voice to Loki.

Loki just smirked, seemingly amused by the meager show and words of defiance.

"There are no men like me."

The old man frowned. "There are _always_ men like you," he contradicted.

Loki's smirk grew, and he pointed his staff in the old man's direction.

"Look to your elder, people," he told the crowd as the staff began shining once again with bright blue energy. "Let him be an example."

As the energy burst forth from the scepter, Steve suddenly leapt forward, and — with Jamie still on his back — dived right into the middle of the crowd very easily, and quickly crouched down low as held up his shield in order to defend the elderly man. The energy easily bounced right off the metal, and boomeranged back directly at Loki, who unfortunately was fast enough to get out of the way in time, and was knocked right off his feet as he was blasted backward a few yards as other members of the crowd scrambled to move so he wouldn't land on top of him.

Other than a few shocked gasps of alarm from seeing Loki fall, or a couple of whispers of admiration from a select number of people upon seeing Captain America and his young sidekick Liberty Belle before them live in person, there was absolute silence as Steve slowly got to his feet again, and silently motioned for Jamie to slide down off his back. She moved to stand beside her mentor's side, her torch held firm and true in her right hand. They both glared menacingly at Loki.

"You know," said Steve as he and Jamie began walking forwards a bit more towards Loki, both them ignoring the fact that Loki was glaring evilly at them both, and a couple members of the crowd were getting to their feet to have better view of the legendary Dynamic Duo, "the last time the two of us were in Germany, and saw a man standing above everybody else, we ended up disagreeing."

"Quite sad, actually, what ended up happening to him," Jamie added, twirling her silver torch in her hand. "I'd say his skeleton's still currently floating around in the deep cosmos of space, thanks to having opened a door to the other end of the galaxy."

Loki scoffed in amusement as he got back up again.

"The soldiers," he said in mock pleasure. "The man and child out of time."

Steve was unperturbed. He remained calm and collected as Natasha suddenly flew the Quinjet into view.

"Liberty and I aren't the one's who's out of time," he countered.

An enormous blaster emerged from the bottom of the Quinjet, and fired up as it aimed directly at demi-God.

"Loki, drop the weapon and stand down," Natasha's voice ordered over the intercom system of the plane.

But Loki did not. Instead, he fired off yet another blast of the bright blue energy at the Quinjet. Natasha managed to dodge the flare at the last second, and quickly flew off and out of the way as the gold-and-green-armored Norse God started reeling back his staff to fire again.

Steve and Jamie wouldn't allow that to happen. They both charged forward, Jamie with her torch raised high above her head, and Steve ramming his shield in Loki's direction. The shield hit Loki dead on, and he stumbled for a moment as Jamie tried to whack him upside the head with her torch. She would have clicked the special button on her metal weapon to spit out some fireballs, but there were still civilians around, all trying to make a hasty escape from the imminent battle between the Dynamic Duo and the mysterious villain. Loki noticed her rapidly running up to him, and quickly blocked her attack with his magical staff. There was a loud clang as the two weapons banged up against each other. Jamie tried to force Loki backward by increasing the pressure upon the two weapons, but her enemy was a Norse God with enhanced strength, and he easily kicked her aside.

As Jamie went flying backwards, Steve attempted to do battle with Loki in her place, and landed a powerful punch on Loki's jaw, but Jamie didn't even notice the short battle engaging between her mentor and the God of Mischief. Loki's kick had launched several yards away from the fight, and she was regaining her bearings.

A boy about her age, or give or take a year or so, was suddenly rushing past her as he carried a small skateboard painted navy blue on the topside, and bright red underneath under his arm as he tried to get away. Jamie blinked when she saw the small board. She didn't know what a skateboard was exactly, but from the device in the boys' arm, she saw a means of having a better chance in this fight. Her hand shot out and grabbed the boy by his shoulder before he could run too far away for her to catch him.

The boy gasped a bit from her forcibly spinning him back around to face her, clearly startled to be acknowledged by the famous Girl Wonder, but Jamie didn't have time for chitchat. She pointed to his skateboard.

"I need that!"

The boy stared at her, not only scared now, but also puzzled. He didn't know English, and didn't understand why she was pointing to his skateboard.

"Your wheeled board-thingy!" she said, still gesturing to his skateboard since she didn't know what its proper name was. "I need to borrow it!"

The boy just still looked confused.

Jamie huffed in annoyance. She really wished that her old friend back in the army in World War II, Gabe Jones, had taught her what he knew about the German language in addition to teaching her to speak French. How could she make this boy understand she needed to borrow his toy in order to help Steve in defeating Loki?

By this point, Steve and Loki had begun an epic hand-to-hand brawl, with Loki trying to hit the adult super-soldier with his mystical staff and Steve hastily deflecting the attacks with his shield, but Loki managed to get a lucky hit in, and Steve was sent tumbling backward against the stonework surrounding a pretty fountain.

Jamie wouldn't have that. Loki was hurting Steve, her mentor. She was wasting time trying to make this boy understand her. With an apologetic look, she seized the skateboard from the boy's arms. The boy began protesting loudly in his native tongue.

"Forgive me! I'll return it when I'm done!" she called out to the boy over her shoulder as she dropped it onto the ground, hopped onto it, and began zipping back over to the fight.

To say that she enjoyed the feeling of whizzing back across the pavement of the tiny square on the skateboard was an understatement. She felt exhilarated. The board was a little hard for her to understand how to work for the first second-and-a-half as she found her balance, but after those moments passed, she felt so free and alive. Her right foot would continuously have to push up against the ground in order for her to keep moving, but that was hardly noticeable to her. Her hair was flying about behind her, and she was maintaining her balance equally across the board, with her free hand stretched out slightly behind her to make sure she stayed balanced, while the hand still holding her torch was aiming and pressing the special button on her metal weapon to spit out a series of fireballs.

Upon seeing Jamie rejoining the fight while riding the skateboard, both Steve and Loki were immediately taken aback, and they stopped fighting for half-a-second as they processed what they were seeing. Neither of them had expected to see her suddenly racing back to the fight while on small mode of transportation. But her fireballs shooting out from her torch brought them both back to reality, and Steve leapt backwards and out of the way as Loki tried to dodge them, and then he sent his shield zooming towards the Norse God, too. While Loki succeeded in bashing the shield aside, one of the fireballs did manage to graze the side of his body, and he grunted in pain as the two super-soldiers charged back toward them, one running, and the other still skateboarding.

Steve, now without his shield, began fighting hand-to-hand once again while Jamie zipped up and around them on her wheels every few moments as she tried to whack Loki anywhere she could with the blunt end of her torch. Loki was growing annoyed. He couldn't focus on fighting Steve while Jamie was attacking him in every direction possible thanks to riding on that skateboard every few seconds. He got a lucky hit on Steve, and as Steve tumbled down for a moment, so he turned and zapped a blue energy wave in Jamie's direction. Jamie had to quickly turn the wheels of the board away from Loki in order to avoid it, but Loki didn't stop there. He sent another blast in an area of the pavement almost directly in front of her.

Jamie tried to stop the board. She partially succeeded. The board stopped, but as she was not an experienced skateboarder, she herself did not. She went flying directly in the direction of Steve, who was crouching down on the ground as he tried to regain his bearings. He jumped a bit when Jamie landed next to him.

"Libby! Libby, are you all right?" he asked.

Jamie rubbed the side of her right shoulder from where she landed on it as she got up on her knees and reluctantly nodded.

"I'm fine, Cap," she muttered, still rubbing the sore area.

Loki slammed the tip of his scepter down in the earth between the adult and child super-soldiers.

"Kneel," he ordered them.

Steve quickly whacked the metal weapon away from him and Jamie jumped up on his feet.

"Not today!" he snapped, managing to land a kick on Loki's face as he did so.

Loki groaned, but had no chance to recover, because he had to jump backward to avoid the flames that jutted out from Jamie's torch once again. She began swinging her makeshift flaming sword about wildly in Loki's direction to gain a couple seconds worth of time of him not trying to attack her so she could reach the skateboard again. Loki realized what she was trying to do, and he completely disregarded the flames by swinging his scepter down on her torch itself. Jamie's weapon flew out of her hands, and without her finger still pressing down on its special button, its flames died away as it landed a small distance away and rolled a bit further away from the brawl. She didn't get a chance to go and retrieve it, because Loki struck her hard enough to go stumbling backwards once again, and then did the same thing to Steve.

Steve and Jamie shared a quick, annoyed look. They were losing this fight. What could they do to improve the odds?

The Quinjet had been hovering in the air above the fight this entire time. Natasha had been keeping her distance, staying out of the way but still close enough to jump in and fire the Quinjet's rocket blasters at Loki should Steve and Jamie get too far in over their heads, so when blasting loud rock music began erupting from its PA system, Steve, Jamie, and Loki all stopped fighting from pure surprise and whirled around to look up at the sky.

A ball of fire was soaring rapidly like a shooting star across the night sky, and as it whooshed through the air straight towards the three of them, it was growing steadily bigger and showing little to no signs of slowing down. As it grew closer, all three of them saw that the ball of fire was actually of human-shape, and appeared to be some sort of mechanized armor built for one person that was made of red and gold painted metal, and had a white glowing triangle in the center of the armor's chest. There was no questioning who it was.

Tony Stark.

Iron Man.

As the Tony descended down upon the fight, he paid little to no mind of the Dynamic Duo still sprawled out on the ground. He simply activated the repulsor technology located in the palms of his gauntlets and flung the blasts of energy right at Loki. Loki was knocked off his feet completely and went flying backward several feet into the steps of the museum as the mechanically armored superhero landed crouching down on the pavement of the square. He still didn't even look over at Steve or Jamie as he stood back up, and prepared not only another repulsor beam in Loki's direction should he try to make a sudden move, but a mini-gun popped out from the shoulder region of the suit and were cocked and loaded in Loki's direction.

"Make your move, Reindeer Games," came the somewhat muffled words heard from Tony from underneath the red and gold helmet of the suit.

Steve quickly retrieved his shield, and Jamie seized back her torch and the boy's skateboard she'd borrowed before moving to join Tony in glaring menacingly down at the Norse God of Mischief. Their silence spoke for itself as the three of them stood there. Should he try anything further, he'd be dealing with all three of them together.

Very slowly, the gold armor Loki was wearing disappeared with a flash of light, leaving him in just a casual every day Asgardian green garment, though now instead of being complimented with gold, there was a black shirt and a pair of black boots. He slowly raised his hands to his head in surrender.

The repulsor beams in the gauntlets of the Iron Man suit died away, and the mini-guns disappeared again into the hidden sockets of the shoulders.

"Good move," said Tony approvingly.

As the Quinjet began descending down in order to land in the middle of the square, Steve and Jamie turned to look fully at the mechanized hero that was supposedly the son of their good friend Howard from back in their days of fighting against Hydra in World War II.

"Mr. Stark," said Steve with a curt nod.

"Iron Man," said Jamie in wonder.

"Captain, Liberty," said Tony with a nod of his own, but he wasn't looking at either of them. He kept his gaze firmly locked on Loki just in case he tried to make a sneak attack.

But Loki didn't do anything. It was very bizarre. As Natasha landed the Quinjet and came out to assist the three other heroes in detaining the Norse God of Mischief, Loki remained absolutely silent and allowed himself to be escorted into the Quinjet.

Jamie thought that this was all very strange, but she didn't have time to dwell on it. She had to return the skateboard she borrowed back to the boy she had borrowed it from. She saw him hiding alongside some other tourists a short distance away, and quickly tucked the skateboard under her arm before walking up to him.

"Sorry to have taken this from you," she told the boy. She tried to hand it back over to him, but the boy began shaking his head, and pushed the skateboard away as he jabbered something in German.

Jamie frowned. She didn't understand what he was saying, but that was irrelevant. She had to return the skateboard.

"Here!" she insisted, trying to shove the skateboard back to its rightful owner a second time. "It's yours!"

Again, the boy deftly swatted the board away, and continued speaking something earnestly in German.

Jamie just grew more puzzled. Why wouldn't he take his property back?

"Liberty Belle!" said Steve, walking towards her upon noticing that his protégé had still not entered the Quinjet so they could all return to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier. "Liberty, what's going on?"

"I borrowed this board-thingy from this boy during the fight," Jamie explained, gesturing to the boy as she spoke. "I'm trying to return it to him now, but he won't take it. He doesn't seem to know English."

Steve frowned, but took the skateboard from Jamie and tried to give it to the boy.

"My protégé appreciates that you let her use your toy," he told the boy. "But it's still yours."

Just like Jamie had tried to do, he tried to give it to the boy, but by now, the boy was growing annoyed, and he snatched the skateboard away from Steve and shoved it back into Jamie's hands as he began stomping his foot and speaking angrily.

Steve and Jamie exchanged puzzled looks. Why was the kid giving Jamie his skateboard?

"Wait here a minute, Libby," Steve instructed Jamie. "I think Romanoff knows German. I'll get her to translate what he's saying."

Jamie nodded to her mentor, and he quickly turned and vanished inside the Quinjet. He returned a moment later with Natasha at his heels.

"You needed me to translate something?" Natasha asked Jamie.

Jamie nodded. "I borrowed this boy's wheeled board-thingy for the battle. I'm trying to return it to him, but he won't take it. Could you ask him why?"

Natasha nodded, and then turned to the boy and recited the question in fluent German.

The boy blinked upon hearing her speak in his native language, but then he overcame his surprise and began pointing at both Jamie and his skateboard as he replied to her.

Natasha looked taken aback by his response.

"What did he say?" Steve asked.

"He said he wants your protégé to keep the skateboard."

Jamie was stunned by both hearing the name of the device she was carrying, and from the revelation that the boy was giving her his toy.

"W-what?" she squeaked.

"He says he's grateful that you and the Cap stopped the 'bad man,' and he wants to give you his skateboard to say thank you."

"Tell him I can't accept it!" said Jamie immediately. "Tell him I just wanted to borrow it!"

Natasha relayed the message, but the boy firmly shook his head and said something back.

"He says he understands that you only wanted to borrow it, but he's insistent that you keep it. You apparently are a much better skateboarder than he is, and he wants you to keep using it in the future when stopping bad guys."

"Tell the boy that that's out of the question," said Steve upon hearing that translation. "Tell him that we both appreciate the sentiment, but that this so-called skateboard is his property. He has to take it back."

"Cap, I honestly don't think the boy's going to listen."

"Just tell him."

Natasha frowned, but translated Steve's words regardless. This time, the boy was beginning to look very mad, and he shouted something in German before starting to walk away, leaving the skateboard where it was in Jamie's hands.

"Well…" said Natasha, looking a tad bit amused. "He said that you, Liberty, can either take the skateboard with you onto the plane, or you can just leave it here, because he's leaving, and even if you don't take it with you, he's not taking it back."

Jamie blinked. She wasn't really sure what to say. She never wanted to keep the skateboard forever, regardless of how free and alive she felt while zooming around on it; she just meant to borrow it. She turned to look up at Steve.

"I… I don't know what to do, Cap," she said, still rather stunned.

Steve didn't answer her right away. He was deliberating the dilemma. It was clear that that little boy wanted his protégé to keep the skateboard. He finally sighed, and looked back down at her.

"I guess… keep it if you want to," he told her. "It's technically a gift now."

"O… Okay…" she said hesitantly.

All three of them made their way back over to the Quinjet, Jamie carrying the skateboard under the crook of her right arm, as her left hand was holding her torch. She wasn't entirely sure what to think. She now had a skateboard in her possession. How would this help her solve crime in the future? Just because she was able to use it this time didn't mean she'd always have a large open area to skate upon it in the future while fighting crime.

As Natasha planted herself back into the pilot's seat, she clicked the button to shut the doors to the Quinjet, and Steve and Jamie were finally in private again. They ignored the smirks they were receiving from Tony, who'd already taken off his Iron Man helmet and had been guarding Loki this entire time in his belted down seat in the plane, and they pulled off their mask and cowl.

"Why the delay? Needed pizza?" he said in a snarky tone.

Steve shot Tony an irritable glance as the ship took to the air again, but Jamie didn't say or do anything in response. She just stared at Tony curiously as she sat down in a plane seat directly across from Loki. She set her mask and new skateboard down on the open seat beside her and stuck her torch into the special holster for it on her hip before reaching into the pocket of her dress and taking out her brother's silver pocket watch, which she hastily threw back on over her neck again now that the fight was over. She didn't care that Tony was being rude. She was just glad to finally meet Howard's son.

This was the man she'd been told had once survived a kidnapping incident of his own. It had been organized by some terrorist organization, she recalled Steve telling her. He was probably the only man she'd met that had any idea what she'd gone through when she was kidnapped by Hydra, and that also technically made him the only person who could answer questions regarding what Trent had once said about there being rules of how prisoners of war are treated. And if he'd been kidnapped before, surely there must be nights when he has nightmares about it, too, right? Maybe he could tell her what he does on those bad nights. She was getting tired of always wearing a cloth gag in her mouth to muffle her screams.

She wanted to stand up and ask him all about it right then and there, but she didn't dare. Steve was standing right there, too. If she asked Tony her questions now, that meant Steve would hear it. He'd demand to know what she was talking about, and she'd be forced to tell him all about her two days of hell while in captivity. She wasn't going to let him know anything about that. She'd have to wait and ask Tony later when he was alone.

After a couple minutes of staring at Tony, Jamie shifted her focus to Loki. He was another source of interest to her. She'd read all about him and the other Norse God's in her Norse mythology book. It didn't matter that the God of Mischief had just tried to kill not only her and Steve a little bit ago as well as countless other people. She was still fascinated to discover that he was not at all a legend. She'd already read the file reports pertaining to his older brother Thor this morning when she and Steve were arriving at the Helicarrier. If he and Thor were real, which other God's were real, too? She was most definitely curious about him.

As the plane traveled through the sky back to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s flying headquarters and Natasha began sending a transmission back to Fury on the Helicarrier, Jamie alternated between staring curiously at Tony and Loki. Loki seemed intrigued that he had the attention of the child, and smirked a bit every so often, but still did not say anything. Tony, on the other hand, was puzzled by her stares, but he never got a chance to tell her stop, because Fury was speaking over the intercom to Natasha.

" _Is he saying anything?"_

"Not a word," Natasha replied through her headset.

" _Just get him here. We're low on time."_

Natasha muttered a low affirmative, and shut off the COM link. Steve meanwhile had begun talking in low tone's to both Jamie and Tony.

"I don't like it," he said in a muted voice.

Tony chuckled, amused by his paranoia. "What, Rock of Ages giving up so easily?"

"I don't remember it being that easy," Steve argued. "This guy packs a wallop."

"My mentor's right," Jamie agreed, hopping out of her seat and moving to stand next to them to talk. "He has powers. The fight should have been harder."

"Still, you two are pretty spry for older fellows. What're your things? Pilates?"

Steve and Jamie exchanged looks of confusion before turning back to face Tony.

"What?" Steve asked.

"It's like calisthenics," he explained. "You two might have missed a couple of things doing time as a couple of Capsicles."

Jamie blinked. She was a little bit insulted. She opened her mouth to say something, but Steve held up his hand, silently discouraging her from getting involved in this. She nodded, and closed her mouth.

"Fury didn't tell us he was calling you in," he said shortly.

The amused expression on Tony's face only grew.

"Yeah, there's a lot of things Fury doesn't tell you," he muttered. Then he glanced down at Jamie. "So, what's your story, L.B.? You just blindly follow whatever orders Gramps here tells you?"

"Don't call Steve Gramps!" she immediately protested, grabbing Steve's hand as she spoke. "Don't insult him!"

"Answer my question and maybe I will. Why not think for yourself?"

"Don't address my protégé that way," said Steve sternly, gently shoving Jamie behind him to keep her out of Stark's line of vision. "Don't go filling her head with your wild ideas."

"It was just a question, Cap," Tony shrugged. "A fair question, too, actually. Do you even let L.B. over there think for herself, or do you just blindly order her around during battle?"

"That's none of your concern, Stark."

Jamie was actually surprised to find that she was beginning to consider Tony's question. Did Steve really let her think for herself? She wanted to say yes, but in almost every battle they'd been in, he was always ordering her around. She knew he was her mentor and that she was simply his sidekick, but why did he never give her an opportunity to voice her own ideas on what should be done when fighting? When she stopped and thought about it, this easily blended in with her additional annoyance about Steve having forgotten about her skipped birthday.

Did Steve even care about her at all?

Did he just consider himself to be her mentor and that's all?

What were they anymore?

What was their relationship?

Jamie turned away to sit back down in her seat, but there was suddenly a loud clap of thunder nearby, and a bright flash of lightning.

Jamie abruptly froze.

Jamie turned to look at Loki. He looked very worried. It seemed as though he had reached the same conclusion she had.

There was only one reason why the Quinjet with all of its amazing futuristic technology could be flying right into the middle an unforeseen thunderstorm.

She was the only hero on board to have realized what was going on. Steve, Natasha, and Tony were all still clueless.

"Where's this coming from?" Natasha wondered.

There was another loud rumbling clap of thunder, and a large bolt of zigzagged lightning flashed in the clouds.

Steve turned to look at Jamie, but she did not look back up at him. Her attention was still on Loki. Upon seeing the worried look on both her face and on the God of Mischief's face, Steve was confused.

"What's the matter?" he asked Loki. "Are you scared of a little lightning?"

Loki, to the surprise of everyone but Jamie, actually cringed as he answered him.

"I'm not overly fond of what follows."

"It's _him,"_ said Jamie. She scrambled back over to her plane seat to put back on her blue mask and take her torch out from its place on her hip. She ignored the skateboard, though. She didn't need it at this time. She hastily grabbed her brother's pocket watch from her neck and shoved it back into the pocket of her dress.

Steve and Tony turned to face the little girl as she hurried to slap her mask back on. They did not understand what she was talking about.

"What?" Steve asked her.

But Jamie never got the chance to explain what she knew. Something rather large and firm had just landed upon the roof of the Quinjet, making the entire plane jolt and all the passengers stumble a bit from the force of the bump.

The other adults then realized what it was both Jamie and Loki had been referring to, and Steve hurried to tug back on his face cowl and grab hold of his shield as Tony slammed his Iron Man mask back onto his head. Then he moved to open the rearview hatch of the Quinjet. Steve and Jamie stared at him as he moved toward the open hatch.

"What're you doing?" Steve demanded.

Tony didn't get an opportunity to reply. At that moment, something dropped down from the roof of the Quinjet, and landed upon the open door to the rearview hatch.

It was a large, very strong and muscular man with a great mop of dishwasher blonde hair and piercing blue eyes. He wore a sleeveless black shirt covered in some sort of silver-plated armor, and a neat pair of navy blue pants and black boots. There was a bright red cape fastened to the shoulders of the armor, and it blew out behind him, billowing in the wind. Upon both of his wrists, there were red wristbands covered with silver armored arm bracers, and in his right hand, he carried a great, giant silver hammer with a black handle.

Thor had returned to Earth.

Jamie gulped when she saw the mighty God of Thunder stand up from his landing position in a crouch. She was ashamed to admit to herself that she was nervous around him. Loki didn't even scare her as much as Thor did. Loki was just a magician and trickster in the legends about Norse God's, and although he was the real threat here and not Thor, he was the God that made her quiver with fear, because Thor could wield thunder and lightning. Lightning was a source of electricity. Electricity was once used to severely torture her. She'd once been strapped to an electric chair and zapped over and over again by Hydra guards as an incentive to give up the American's battle plans. Battle plans that she knew nothing about. Seeing the Prince of Thunder right now reminded her of that time, because she knew that if he wanted to, he could easily use his hammer to conjure up a bolt of lightning and zap her and everyone else on this plane if he wished to.

Loki seemed to be the only other person on board that seemed to share her thought process when it came to the newcomer. He cringed backward in alarm upon seeing his adoptive brother start to storm his way inside the Quinjet.

Tony paid no attention to Jamie and Loki's discomfort. He rose up his palm to blast Thor away with his repulsors, but Thor just knocked him aside with one swing of his hammer. Jamie 'eeped!' loudly and jumped aside as Tony crash landed into Steve, and they both fell to the ground in a small clump. Now the only one still standing, she watched in alarm as Thor completely disregarded her presence and approached Loki. He seized Loki by the collar of his tunic, and yanked him up out of his seat so hard, he broke apart the restraints that were keeping the God of Mischief chained to the seat. Again, Thor ignored the little girl as he started dragging Loki still by the collar of his shirt back to the still open rearview hatch as he spun his hammer around his hand so as to fly off again.

Seeing him freeing Loki, something in Jamie ignited. What was she doing? She couldn't just stand here acting scared. Thor was freeing Loki! She had to do something! If she didn't, he might permanently free his adoptive brother, and then they'd never find the Tesseract.

It didn't occur to her to stop and think.

She just acted.

" _Wait!"_ she screamed.

She ran forward, and seized hold of the very end of Thor's cloak in a meager attempt to stop him. She only meant to prevent him from leaving. She never meant to be dragged along for the ride when Thor, not realizing that she was holding onto the end of his cape, jumped out of the Quinjet and flew off.

Her screams of both shock and fear echoed through the air as the God of Thunder flew away.

" _Jamie!"_ Steve shouted, scrambling to his feet. He was shocked. His protégé had just been unintentionally kidnapped by a Norse God who had been trying to kidnap another Norse God.

Tony just groaned in annoyance as he stood back up again.

"And now there's that guy," he muttered darkly.

"Another Asgardian?" Natasha called out from the cockpit.

"That guy's a friendly, right?" Steve asked Tony urgently, deeply concerned about his missing sidekick. "Stark! Tell me if he's friendly! He took Jamie by accident!"

"Doesn't matter," Tony replied, walking up to the exposed hatchway. "If he frees Loki or kills him, the Tesseract's lost, and someone has to go and rescue that stupid kid of yours."

"Agreed," said Steve, nodding upon hearing what he said about rescuing Jamie. "Stark, we need a plan of attack!"

"I have a plan," said Tony, pausing only for a moment to look over his shoulder at the super-soldier. "Attack."

And then without another word, he activated the thrusters in his suit and flew out of the Quinjet and into the sky.

Steve sighed, but nonetheless ran to grab a parachute pack in the corner.

"I'd sit this one out, Cap," Natasha advised.

"I don't see how I can," Steve replied, not even looking at her as he strapped the pack onto his back. "Jamie's my sidekick. My protégé. She's my responsibility. I have to rescue her."

"These guys come from legend," Natasha pointed out. "They're basically Gods."

At her words, Steve just shook his head.

"There's only one God, ma'am," he told her, making sure that his shield was securely fastened to his arm as he, too, hurried to the rearview hatch. "And I'm pretty sure he doesn't dress like that."

And with that having been said, he ran forward, and leaped right out of the Quinjet.

It didn't matter to him if Thor was a good guy or bad guy. It didn't matter if he was on their side in stopping Loki and would help them retrieve the Tesseract, or would join forces with Loki and prevent them from finding the Cosmic Cube.

He had taken Jamie.

He would not rest until his little apprentice was safe again.


	3. Questions

**I'm well aware that this chapter is a bit shorter than the other one's I've posted so far, but in what it lacks in terms of length, it makes up for in a quicker update. Seriously, it took me less than twenty-four hours to carve this out. Sometimes I amaze even myself when it comes to how fast I can write if I'm eager about a story and have a lot of free time on my hands.**

 **We're moving forward with Jamie's plotline in this chapter, people! Important things are mentioned in this! Read carefully so you don't miss any details!**

 **As always, let me take a moment to thank all my reviewers:**

 **\- Cameo M. Wolf**

 **\- ZabuzasGirl**

 **\- Irelandlover**

 **Please everyone, be as nice as these readers were and review when you're done with the chapter! I love reading reviews! They make my day!**

 **Disclaimer for Liberty Belle: The Avengers Assemble is available in the AU note of chapter one.**

 **Happy Reading!**

* * *

 **Chapter Three: Questions**

Jamie screamed at the top of her lungs as she clutched both her metal torch with one hand to keep from dropping it, and Thor's red cape in the other so she herself wouldn't fall as the Norse God of Thunder flew rapidly through the clouds with the collar of his adoptive brother clutched tightly in the hand not holding his hammer. Despite how much she loved to fly, this was nothing short of terrifying to the little girl. If she had known that she would be dragged along for the ride when Thor jumped out of the Quinjet with Loki, she would not have gotten involved. She'd have stayed where she was and waited for Steve to get back up on his feet before doing anything.

Why oh why did she decide to act without consulting him first?

It had taken the two demi-Gods less than a second after leaving the Quinjet to realize that they had a tag along. Loki had actually tried to chuckle despite the hard grip Thor had around his throat, but Thor had been rather alarmed by her presence. He had not anticipated that the mortal child he had left unharmed on the strange metal bird would grab hold of his cape as he seized his brother from the captivity that the humans had placed him in. He was quite certain by the amount of shock and fear on her face and by the fact that she was not attacking him that she had not intended to fly away with the two of them, but merely wanted to stop him. Obviously, that had not happened.

The smart thing to do would be to return the little girl back to the other mortals, but if he did that, they'd prevent him from taking Loki, and he had more than a few things to say to his brother at this time. He had no choice but to keep the mortal human girl with him for now. He couldn't reach behind him and pull her into the safety of his arms, though. He had to carry Mjolnir, or else they'd all fall, and if he changed his grip even an inch on his brother's throat, he might lose his grip on him and cause him to fall from the sky. But he couldn't just keep flying with her struggling to stay latched on to his cape. He had to find some place to land. He'd save the girl, and begin his long-awaited talk with his believed-to-be-dead brother.

He spied a somewhat smooth area on the base of a nearby mountain, and aimed his course of direction towards there. He all but dropped his Frost Giant adoptive sibling down onto some rocks before landing gently a few feet away. As Loki groaned from the force of landing hard on the rocky landscape, Jamie promptly let go of Thor's cape and backed away. She was terrified and had no idea what was going to happen next. Was Thor going to fight Loki? If he was, she would have no part of that. She did not want to get in the middle of a full out brawl between two creatures of myth and legend.

To her immense relief, Thor did not immediately begin whacking Loki with his enormous hammer. Instead, he turned to look at her.

"Mortal Child who's name I know not—"

"L-Liberty B-Belle is my c-codename!" she squeaked rather nervously.

"—remain silent and out of the way." Thor finished. Seeing her nod frantically in fear, Thor then turned to face Loki, who was still lying on his back on the rocky terrain. "Where is the Tesseract?" he demanded.

Loki, to Jamie's disbelief, began laughing. "I missed you, too," he said haughtily.

"Do I look to be in a gaming mood?" Thor growled, clenching his hammer tightly in his hand.

"You should thank me," said Loki, beginning to rise back up again. "With the Bifrost gone, how much dark energy did the Allfather have to muster to conjure you here to your precious Earth?"

Jamie remained silent, but her eyes were widening upon listening to them speak in mythological terms. Odin existed, too? And the legendary bridge made of rainbows that connected her world of the planet Earth to their realm of Asgard was also real? She wanted to open her mouth and ask them to elaborate further, but Thor growled and dropped his hammer, which fell with a loud clang onto the ground as he seized Loki by the collar of his tunic.

"I thought you dead," he said darkly.

"Did you mourn?" Loki sneered.

"We all did! Our father—"

" _Your_ father," Loki corrected, shoving Thor off of him. "He did tell you my true parentage, did he not?"

Jamie couldn't stop herself this time. She spoke up against her better judgment.

"Loki, the second Prince of Asgard and the Norse God of Trickery and Mischief," she recited from the top of her head the page in her Norse mythology book that had details on the demi-God in front of her. "Born as the son of Laufey, Ruler of the Frost Giants in Jotunheim, and abandoned at birth by his biological family. Was found by Odin the Allfather as an infant and raised as his adoptive son and his wife Frigga to be Thor's brother."

Both of the demi-God's turned to face her. Both were stunned by her apparent knowledge about Loki. After a moment though, Loki smirked.

"It seems even the mortals knew all about my true parentage before even we did, brother," he said, still acting arrogant as he strolled up to her. "Continue, please."

"No," Thor growled, turning to Jamie. She immediately cowered away from the Thunder God. "Mortal Girl of the Bell of Liberty, stay silent and out of this conversation." He didn't wait this time to see if Jamie would nod or shake her head. He turned his attention back to Loki's retreating form. "We were raised together. We played together, we fought together… Do you remember none of that?!"

"I remember a shadow," Loki calmly countered. "Living in the shade of your greatness. I remember you tossing me into an abyss. I, who was, and should be, king!"

"Are you serious?!" said Jamie, speaking up once again but this time in disbelief by what Loki had just said. "You're starting a war on my world just because you hate your brother?! That's the only reason why you're doing all of this?!"

This time, Thor did not shush her. He, too, was enraged by Loki's reasoning for waging war against the planet.

"You're taking the world I love as a recompense for your imagined slights?" he seethed. "No. The Earth is under my protection, Loki."

Upon hearing Thor's words, Loki laughed mockingly.

"And you're doing a marvelous job with that," he countered. "The humans slaughter each other in droves while you idly threat. They send their children out to fight an adult's war."

He pointed sharply at Jamie, who jumped upon being recognized by the God of Mischief. She tried to speak up in order to defend her reasoning for being involved in this battle for Earth, but Loki did not give her a chance. He continued speaking.

"Even on Asgard, we send only those who have lived for over fifteen hundred years out onto the battlefield. Not our children. I mean to rule them, as why should I not?"

Thor just lightly shook his head, thoroughly disgusted. "You think yourself above them?" he asked.

"Well, yes," Loki admitted with a shrug.

"Then you miss the truth of ruling, brother. A throne would suit you ill."

That made Loki mad. He punched Thor in the shoulder before storming past him towards the edge of the mountain.

Jamie could tell this was getting intense, but she dared not speak up again. She had a feeling that any moment now they might engage in full-blown fisticuffs, and she was not getting in the middle of such a clash between Gods.

"I've seen worlds you've never known about!" Loki said, now shouting at Thor. "I have grown, Odinson, in my exile. I have seen the true power of the Tesseract, and when I wield it—"

"Who showed you this power?" Thor interrupted, moving up closer to Loki. "Who controls the would-be king?"

"I am a king!"

"Not here!"

Jamie jumped back when Thor grabbed Loki by his shoulders and shook him roughly so as to emphasize his words.

"You give up the Tesseract! You give up this poisonous dream!" He swallowed thickly before speaking his next words in a low whisper. "You come _home."_

Again, Loki just sneered.

"I don't have it."

Thor growled, and stretched out his hand. Jamie couldn't stop herself from gasping when the hammer suddenly flew into his outstretched hand. He raised it high over his head as if intending to strike Loki, but Loki stopped him by going on.

"You need the Cube to bring me home. But I've sent if off, I know not where."

"Liar!" Jamie hissed.

Both of the Gods ignored her.

"You listen well, brother," said Thor, now looking very mad. "I—"

He was cut off by Iron Man suddenly flying by and grabbing him in midsentence. Iron Man didn't stop to fight and restrain Loki or even to grab hold and rescue Jamie. He just flew right by with Thor in his grasp as he flew off toward the forest at the foot of the mountain.

Jamie screamed a bit form surprise, and ran to the edge of the mountain to witness Iron Man flying away with Thor in his hands.

Loki did not move an inch, but he did chuckle upon witnessing his brother being taken away.

"I'm listening," he said to the night air.

* * *

Tony Stark waited until he was in the middle of the forest and a somewhat safe distance from the ground before dropping the God of Thunder. Thor fell and slid through the dirt wildly, sending up great clobs of earth sprawling about everywhere as Tony landed a short distance away.

It took Thor a moment to stand back up again. He wasn't hurt at all. It took a lot more than that to severely injure him. No, he was just annoyed by being pulled away from his conversation with his stepbrother. He glared at Tony as Tony ejected the visor of his Iron Man helmet so Thor could see his real face.

"Do not touch me again," Thor growled, his hand grasping his hammer tightly.

"Then don't take my stuff or go kidnapping a kid," Tony shrugged.

"I did not plan to take the Bell of Liberty," Thor argued. "Your people are more than welcome to retrieve her. As for Loki… You have no idea what you're dealing with."

Tony actually looked amused at that last bit. He spared a glance over his shoulder at the mountain where Loki and Jamie were still waiting.

"Uh… Shakespeare in the Park?"

Thor frowned. He had no idea what that was supposed to mean.

"Doth Mother know you wear-eth her drapes?" Tony clarified, even a bit of an English accent to his words to add the appeal of the old English tongue.

Thor growled at the now revealed insult. "This is beyond you, metal man. Loki will face Asgardian justice."

"He gives up the Cube, he's all yours. Until then," Tony paused to flick the visor of his helmet back into place. "Stay out of the way."

Thor sighed but looked away. He didn't want to argue with the man of metal. He would've dropped the matter, but then Tony had to chime two extra cents worth.

"Tourist…"

That Thor would not stand for. He may have learned humility when his father had sent him to Earth the year before, but there was still a small sense of pride hidden inside of him. He was the Prince of Asgard, and he would not be so rudely disrespected by this arrogant mortal that wore a suit of armor. As Tony began turning around to fly back up to the mountain to recapture Loki and rescue Captain America's little sidekick, Thor growled and hurled his hammer directly at him. The famed inventor of the modern era barely had time to whirl back around in surprise before he was knocked clean off his feet by the mystical weight of Mjolnir, and launched several feet away onto the ground.

Thor was not the only one in the small clearing who had an overdeveloped sense of pride. Tony was the most narcissistic and unpredictable man alive, and he never knew when to let something go. Upon being whacked by the demi-God's hammer, a fiery streak lit up like a roaring fire inside him.

"Okay," he muttered, smirking a bit from the thought of doing battle with the legendary Prince of Thunder as he slowly sat back up.

Thor seemed to sense that Tony meant business now, and quickly summoned Mjolnir back to his hand. He didn't care how much he injured this mortal. His ego should be taken down a peg. Or maybe ten. Thor began spinning it around in hand, ready to use it so he could fly forward and whack Tony with Mjolnir still in his hand, but Tony quickly summoned a repulsor blast in one of his hands, and shot the beam of energy directly at Thor.

Thor was not able to dodge the fast moving rays of bright light, and he flew backward from the force of the unexpected attack right into a tree. But Tony did not give him a chance to recover. He powered up the thrusters in his suit, zoomed up toward the God of Thunder, and kicked him so hard, Thor broke the tree that had broken his fall clean in half as he went flying backwards a second time. The hammer slipped through his fingers, and fell a short distance away, but Thor simply called it back to him with a wave of his hand.

Thor was done fooling around with this arrogant mortal. If he wanted a fight, that was exactly what he was going to get. He raised his hammer high over his head, and silently called forth the lightning. A great thunderbolt of lightning shot down from the sky, and crackled into the hammer, now acting as a lightning rod. As soon as his hammer was charged up again, Thor brought the hammer back down to his level, and shot a bolt a lightning through it right at Tony.

There was a loud popping and sizzling sound of electricity as the blast of lightning coursed through the electrical wiring of the suit, and Tony spluttered around a bit as he was electrocuted, no longer in control of his body as he jolted around from the shockwaves. It was a very long few seconds of this before Thor finally called off the lightning.

Tony groaned when the electricity stopped coursing throughout his body. That had been very painful. He stopped when he heard a message from his artificial intelligent butler J.A.R.V.I.S. began relaying a message on what had happened to the suit from the lightning. The suit had been designed to convert energy sources in order to recharge the energy level in the arc reactor, after all.

" _Power at four hundred percent capacity,"_ a computerized male voice chirped in his ear.

"How about that?" said Tony with a smirk.

He immediately regained his bearings and blasted a unibeam from the arc reactor in his chest. Thor was a bit stunned from the new, much more powerful attack, but was able to stop himself from landing upon his back when the explosive wave knocked him backward. He landed upon his feet, and quickly raised his hammer to fly right at Tony. Tony activated his thrusters in record time, and the two met in mid-air.

The two engaged in an all out brawl in the sky as they flew a short distance away from the forest, punching and hitting each other whenever either of them had an opening. They were so busy fighting, they barely even looked up when they knocked into the side of a second mountain. Small shards of rock broke apart with small clatters as they zoomed up the side of the mountain, but the two flying superheroes didn't even notice. Tony was trying to punch Thor in the jaw, and Thor was trying to wham Mjolnir up against Tony's skull.

Eventually, they managed to steer the brawl away from the edge of the mountain, and back into the air for a few moments before landing into another area of the forest again. Trees were knocked aside as they whizzed back down, but the Thor and Tony couldn't even feel the pain. They were two focused on bringing pain to the other to notice it. Upon landing, both of them shot back up onto their feet again, and charged at each other. Thor tried to swing his hammer at Tony's head again, but Tony dodged, and tried to throw a punch of his own. Thor caught the punch, and began squeezing Tony's wrist hard enough to begin crunching the metal. The sensory wires in the Iron Man gauntlets began beeping sporadically upon receiving the damage. Tony had to get him to let go of his gloves immediately or the gauntlets would be severely damaged. He quickly shot out a quick repulsor beam.

It unfortunately missed the Norse God, but it did catch him off guard, and that one-second of distraction was all Tony needed. He tugged his hand out of Thor's grip, and promptly head-butted him. Thor stumbled a step or two back, but then found his footing again and head-butted him. The force of the attack sent Tony somersaulting backwards a few yards before he managed to correct himself, and then flew right back at Thor, and threw him by the edge of his cape into the trunk of a large pine tree. His hammer fell from his hand as he tumbled down.

Thor glared as he got back up again, and then rushed at the mechanized superhero and began throwing punches until Tony was a bit fatigued, and then manhandled him so he could flip him over his feet on the ground. As soon as Tony groaned from the pain of being forcibly backed flipped, Thor called Mjolnir back to him. It returned to its rightful master in less than a moment. He tried to ram it down upon Tony's sprawled out body, but Tony activated the thrusters in his suit, and quickly zoomed along the terrain before he could. Thor, not having expected this, accidently hit the ground with his hammer instead, and he himself slipped upon the soil on his stomach. As he tried to get up, he spied Tony zeroing in on his thrusters for another attack, and he raised his hammer to block the incoming strike.

Tony landed, and the two engaged his fisticuffs again.

Nothing could stop them from brawling to their heart's content.

Nothing and nobody.

Nobody except—

"Hey!"

A large, circular shield painted in a red, white, and blue stripe pattern with a five-pointed white star in its center suddenly went whirling in between the heads of the two heroes, and Tony and Thor immediately jumped apart to try to avoid getting hit, although Tony wasn't fast enough. The shield ricocheted off his helmet, and went boomeranging back in the direction it had come from. Both men stopped fighting and turned around.

Steve stood upon one of the shattered tree trunks and glared at Tony and Thor as he caught his shield, and tucked it back into place on his arm. He was furious. Not only were these two fully-grown men fighting against one another like spoiled children, but they had also seemingly left Loki alone with Jamie, his innocent little apprentice. She was just a child. She was a good hero, but if Loki decided he wanted to try and escape, she wouldn't be able to stop him. He could easily kill her. What the fuck were these men thinking, fighting like this when she was up there alone with the God of Mischief?!

"That's enough!" he continued.

He hopped the short distance down from the top of the stump of the destroyed tree, and then glared hatefully at Thor. He didn't know what the God of Thunder was doing back on earth, but he was Loki's brother, and he'd taken Jamie. He'd try to be civil first, but if he became hostile with him as he had with Tony, he would not hesitate. He'd find out where Loki and Jamie were, even if he had to beat the answer out of the Norse God.

Jamie was his sidekick.

He'd get her back.

"Now, I don't know what you plan on doing here—"

"I've come here to put an end to Loki's schemes," Thor growled.

"Then prove it," Steve retorted. "Put that hammer down."

"Uh, yeah… No," said Tony with a conceited laugh. "Bad call. He loves his hammer."

But Thor had had enough with Tony's mouth. Without even looking at him, he swung his hammer off to the side, and knocked the metal man backward with little to no effort. As Tony went rolling away through the empty clearing, Thor turned his attention back to Steve.

"You want me to put the hammer down?" he roared.

He leaped into the air, and begin swinging Mjolnir down at Steve. In a movement of pure instinct, Steve crouched down low to the ground, and held up his shield in a means of defense as the hammer descended down on him. As the hammer struck down upon the shield, an enormous blue force field of energy erupted from the strike, and reverberated throughout the entire clearing. The tops of trees were bent backward from the intensity of the wave, and dust sprawled up all around them. Thor was blasted off clean of off his feet over several yards away as the energy continued to pulsate through the area. Even Tony got pushed back several meters. He hadn't been as close to the source as Thor had, so he didn't get the brunt of it, but he too was startled by the power. The only one still in their original position was Steve, as the shield was protecting him.

Vibranium was the strongest metal on Earth, after all.

As everyone stood back up again, Thor stared in bewilderment of what had just happened. In all his many centuries of living on Asgard, no one in all the nines realms had ever been able to stop an attack from his hammer. Nothing had ever been strong enough to keep Mjolnir from crushing it. He had long believed that it was all but impossible for there to ever be something that could withstand a blunt attack from it, but this mortal man dressed in the colors of red, white, and blue had done it with his shield.

He and that amazing shield would be sung of in songs and legends throughout all of Asgard for many, many centuries to come.

Steve, although also a bit stunned by what had just transpired, did not wait around for everyone to fully regain their bearings. He just rounded on Thor.

"Are we done, here?" he demanded.

Thor reluctantly nodded.

"Good. Then you better tell me where my protégé is."

"Your protégé?" Thor repeated, blinking a bit.

"The girl! You took her by accident when you took Loki! Where is she?! If she's hurt at all, I don't care if you're on our side or not! You will wish you were still fighting Stark and not me!"

"The Bell of Liberty? She is unharmed. She is still up on the mountain with my brother. If she has been harmed during this time, it was not by my doing but his."

"Take me to her."

* * *

Up on the mountain, Jamie and Loki had silently watched the fight commence. Loki was seemingly amused by long fight between Tony and Thor, but Jamie was very scared. She was shocked by all the devastation they were causing.

Loki had to admit, the little girl standing next to him was most definitely intriguing to him. He had not lied when he had told Thor that the human race disgusted him by putting a small female child out to fight against him. Had they been on Asgard that would never have been allowed. Children were taught how to fight as soon as they became the Earthen equivalent to approximately eight-years-old, but they never forced the children to fight on the battlefield unless they were around the Earthen age-range of fifteen, and only if they had the mental capacity to handle the horrors of war.

But this mortal girl that went by the name of Liberty Belle was different. She was approximately around the Earthen age of ten, and yet she was technically almost eighty-years-old. By all rights, she should have aged into an old woman many decades ago, but she'd been frozen in time, and he was also quite certain that that was only half of the problem with her. He was not the Norse God of Trickery and Deception for nothing. He could tell just from watching her watch the fight between his brother and the one known as Iron Man that she was a troubled child. She was quiet thing if not provoked, and he was quite certain that there was something about Thor that deeply frightened her. He wasn't sure what it was about his brother that seemed to scare her, but he could definitely tell that she was afraid of him.

Loki smirked. Had he have met this innocent child on normal day at a normal time, he would normally not have bothered with her. She was just a child, and he more important things to worry about when it came to taking over the Earth, but she was involved in this fight. If she was to be one of the many adversaries' the people of Earth had seemingly pitted against him, he might as well try and tamper with her fragile mental state. His plan for using the Tesseract to be the ruler of this human world would be so much easier if he could manipulate her. If she was a mess, then she would be unreasonable to the others who were trying to stop him, which meant his future ascension as the King of Earth would be a breeze.

"Charming, isn't it? How much brother and your friend are greeting each other?" he nonchalantly asked.

Jamie jumped and spun around. She had not expected him to address her out of the blue.

"W-what?" she whimpered.

"And look," he went on, pointing vaguely off to the sky. "Here comes your precious Captain."

Jamie looked over in the direction he was pointing in. Sure enough, she could just barely make out a small black dot against the night sky, dropping rapidly down to the ground for a moment before parachute shot out, allowing her mentor to float safely down into the forest. She looked back over at Loki after a moment.

"Captain America is going to make them stop," she declared firmly to the Norse God. "He's not going to tolerate them fighting. He's going to make them stop, and once he does, they're all going to come up here and arrest you again."

"Oh, they will, will they?"

"Yes. It doesn't matter how strong you are. We're all going back to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s headquarters, and you're going to be arrested until you tell us where you hid the Tesseract. You're _not_ going to win!"

Loki's smirk only grew. The child was truly amusing when she was acting all firm and important.

"Is that right?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, nodding firmly as she spoke. "Now that your brother is here, there's no way you're going to win. I don't even get why you're attacking us if he's the one you're mad at. You really shouldn't hate him. Having a big brother is one of the greatest things in the world!"

Loki's brow rose at that last bit, and he took note of how her eyes watered as she talked about the importance between siblings, but he disregarded it with a wave of his hand. That was irrelevant to what he was about to say.

"You know what I find interesting," he said, completely ignoring everything she just said, "Is that your so-called mentor is stopping them instead of coming up here to look for you."

Whatever response Jamie had been anticipating from him, that was not it. She stared at him with wide eyes.

"W-what did you say?"

"You are his ward, are you not?" he asked. "Is he not supposed to be here rescuing you right now? I'd've thought he cared about you more than simply being his sidekick to come and get you right away, not try and stop my brother and the metal man from fighting."

Jamie completely froze. Loki was technically right. Why was Steve stopping them from fighting instead of coming to get her? Did he not want to take her back to S.H.I.E.L.D.'s Helicarrier with the rest of the crew? Did he want to just leave her out here because she was a bad sidekick? She wanted to believe that what Loki had just told her was a lie, but the idea that Steve didn't care about her all that much had already been in her head for a while now. And Loki's words were just the icing on an already baked cake.

Why wasn't he here rescuing her? When she stopped and thought about it, he never did rescue her from that Hydra base all those years ago. She and Trent had to rescue themselves. If he had gone off to find them, would Trent have lived? Maybe, or maybe not. The point was, he hadn't cared enough about her to go and save her from that Hydra base, and Trent was dead about it.

Had that been intentional?

He never actually asked her what had happened when she was kidnapped.

He had forgotten her birthday.

He was always ordering her around.

Did he even really care about her more than just being his sidekick?

"You're wrong," she said finally, though it was obvious to both herself and Loki that her voice was wavering. "The Captain cares about me. He's going to be here any minute now."

"To arrest me," Loki deflected. "If you were not here with me right now, who's to say he wouldn't come and arrest me first before going off to look for you? He's already choosing to stop my brother and the other man from fighting before tracking you down."

Jamie flinched. Again, Loki was technically right. She didn't like it that he was right. She opened her mouth to reiterate that he would come for her, but at that moment, a blue energy wave resounded from the entire forest.

The conversation between Loki and Jamie came to an abrupt halt, and they both stared at the force field.

"What was that?" Jamie wondered.

Loki shrugged, not really caring either way. He'd already succeeded in planting an extra seed of doubt into the girl's mind. He didn't have to keep talking to her now.

They stood there in silence once again as they waited for some sign from the forest that the heroes would either keep on fighting, or if they'd stop fighting and come retrieve them. Thankfully, Steve seemed to have been able to calm Thor and Tony down, as they were all flying up to where they were standing on the mountain, Steve being carried by Tony.

"Liberty!" said Steve, rushing to his sidekick as soon as Tony set him down. "Liberty, are you all right?!"

"I-I'm fine, Cap," she answered in a small mumble, her thoughts still focused on what Loki had said to her.

Steve didn't think anything of it. He just thought she was still a little shocked by being carted along accidentally by Thor.

"Glad to know you're all right," he said, absent-mindedly patting his head as watched Thor restrain Loki once again.

Jamie just nodded a bit as Thor turned to them and Tony.

"Shall we all return to your flying machine?" he asked Steve.

Steve nodded, and bent down so his back was level with Jamie.

"Get on my back, Libby," he told her. "We're going to have to be carried back by Stark to the Quinjet."

Jamie wordlessly nodded, and climbed up onto his back as she ignored the smirk Loki was sending her. She did not want to believe what he'd told her. She didn't. But it was hard not to consider it. She just clutched the back of Steve's neck and her torch tightly, and tucked her face into his shoulder as Tony grabbed them both and flew up in the air behind Thor with Loki to the Quinjet.

* * *

Steve didn't think much of the fact that Jamie was unusually quiet on the flight back. He just figured that she was still a little shell-shocked from being unintentionally involved between a verbal spar between the two Norse God siblings. He was just glad she was safe and sound once again.

Upon boarding the Helicarrier again, Loki was escorted off by both Fury and an entire team of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents to a holding cell somewhere else on the ship while everyone who'd been on the Quinjet gathered at the conference table in the main room of ship, including Bruce, but excluding Tony. He'd gone off to change out of the suit in the meantime.

Agent Hill invited them to all to sit down at the black table as she pulled up a video feed of what was happening down in the cell. Natasha sat down, as did Steve and Jamie in adjoining chairs a few seats away, but Thor and Bruce chose to remain standing. Jamie had her panda bear on her lap and her copy of _Peter Pan_ in front of her, as she'd left them on the table before she, Steve, and Natasha had flown off to Germany to take down Loki, but her new red and blue skateboard was leaning up against the empty chair next to her. She still wasn't a hundred percent sure what she was going to do with her new toy yet.

Thor was puzzled by the video technology.

"You have a way to view my brother while not in the same room?" he asked, pointing at the video feed, which was displaying a shot of Loki being locked inside of what appeared to be a large glass box built in the exact center of the a room, and hanging over a large hatchway that was currently closed up.

Agent Hill nodded.

"We have a camera down there," she explained. "We need to have one. We need to be able to keep an eye open should he try something, or in case someone gets the wild idea to go down there without permission."

Thor looked like he didn't fully understand what a camera was exactly, but he didn't get an opportunity to question her, because Fury suddenly appeared on the screen, and everyone quieted down so they could watch and listen.

" _In case it's unclear,"_ said Fury to Loki as he strolled over to a large control panel off to the side of the glass prison. _"If you try to escape, if you so much as scratch that glass…"_

He clicked a button. The hatchway doors underneath the cell opened, and everyone watched as Loki peered down the hatch to see the over thirty thousand foot drop from the Helicarrier to the land far below.

"… _it's thirty thousand feet straight down in a steel trap."_ Fury finished. He clicked the same button again, and the doors slid shut. _"You get how that works? Ant"_ — he gestured to Loki — _"Boot."_ He gestured to the control panel.

Loki just chuckled lightly, seemingly amused by the trap.

" _It's an impressive cage,"_ he acknowledged. _"Not built, I think, for me."_

" _Built for something a lot stronger than you."_

" _Oh, I've heard…"_

Loki looked directly up at the camera as he spoke his next words.

" _A mindless beast. Makes play he's still a man."_

Every head at the table turned in Bruce's direction. Bruce had his arms folded across his chest, and was just peering at the projection screen through his reading glasses. He was not reacting at all to what Loki had said. Everyone looked back over at the video feed as Loki continued.

" _How desperate are you, that you call on such lost creatures to defend you?"_

" _How desperate am I?"_ Fury repeated, his voice quivering with suppressed rage. _"You threaten my world with war. You steal a force you can't hope to control. You talk about peace, and you kill because it's fun. You have made me very desperate. You might not be glad that you did."_

" _Ooh…"_ said Loki, now smirking. _"It burns you to have come so close. To have the Tesseract, to have power, unlimited power. And for what? A warm light for all mankind to share. And then to be reminded what real power is."_

At this point, Fury was rolling his eyes. He started walking away off screen, but not before saying one last thing.

" _Well, let me know if 'real power' wants a magazine or something."_

Loki said nothing in reply, but he did shoot one last look at the cameras before the video feed cut out to black.

"He really grows on you, doesn't he?" Bruce joked.

"He's so… smug," said Jamie, hugging Pannie tightly.

"Loki's gonna drag this out," said Steve, ignoring both her comment and Bruce's. "So, Thor, what's his play?"

Thor looked troubled. "He has an army called the Chitauri," he replied. "They're not of Asgard, nor any world known. He means to lead them against your people. They will win him the Earth, in return, I suspect, for the Tesseract."

"An army," Steve repeated skeptically. "From outer space."

"It's not that hard to believe, Steve," Jamie piped, looking up at her mentor. "Remember our last battle with the Red Skull? It was like the Tesseract opened some sort of door to another dimension and sucked him into it."

"Maybe. I don't know," Steve said to her. "I honestly don't understand what happened at the end of that last battle."

Jamie shrugged, but didn't comment further.

"So, he's building another portal," Bruce suggested. "That's what he needs Erik Selvig for."

"Selvig?" Thor repeated, his head shooting up at the name.

"He's an astrophysicist," Bruce explained.

But Thor shook his head. "He's a friend," he corrected.

"Loki has him under some kind of spell," Natasha explained, but then face fell. "Along with one of ours."

"I want to know why Loki let us take him," said Steve abruptly, shifting focus back to him. "He's not leading an army from here."

"Steve's right," said Jamie. "We personally fought against him. He was strong. He could've easily made the fight harder than it was, but he didn't. He let us capture him. Why?"

"I don't think we should be focusing on Loki," said Bruce, taking off his glasses. "That guy's brains is a bag full of cats. You could smell crazy on him."

"Have care how you speak," said Thor, stepping forward. "Loki is beyond reason, but he is of Asgard. And he is my brother."

Natasha's brow rose. "He killed eighty people in two days," she replied coolly.

There was a long pause at her words.

"He's adopted," said Thor finally.

"I think it's about the mechanics," said Bruce. "Iridium… What do they need the iridium for?"

"It's a stabilizing agent."

Heads turned to the entrance to the hallway. Tony was walking to the table, having changed out of his Iron Man armor and into a casual black suit. He was accompanied by Coulson, and was seemingly ending a conversation between them as he approached.

"I'm just saying, pick a weekend. I'll fly you to Portland. Keep love alive," Tony told the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. Then he turned his attention back to everyone at the black conference table as he strolled leisurely forward. "It means the portal won't collapse on itself like it did at S.H.I.E.L.D." As he walked past Thor, he smirked. "No hard feelings, Point Break," he told the God of Thunder. "You've got a mean swing." He patted his shoulder as he walked past him. Thor, despite not knowing what Point Break meant, was just staring after him, as was everyone else.

There was truly no one quite like Tony Stark.

"Also," he continued, strolling up to the two panels that Fury generally used to in place of general computers. "It means the portal can open as wide and stay open as long, as Loki wants." He turned to some other agents. "Raise the mizzenmast. Jib the topsails."

Various agents stopped working on their computers and stared at the arrogant multi-billionaire. Tony didn't care. He had noticed something another S.H.I.E.L.D. employee was doing.

"That man is playing _Galaga,"_ he said pointing at a blonde man in the corner who was now hastily closing the game.

Steve and Jamie both looked over in interest. They knew that game.

"He thought we wouldn't notice, but we did." Having said that, he finally focused his attention on the control panels. He frowned, and began massaging his temples, as though the idea of two panels opposite one another was enough to give him a headache. "How does Fury even see these?" he asked Agent Hill.

"He turns," the woman replied dryly.

"Sounds exhausting," he muttered, running his hands over one of the holographic display panels. He resumed speaking. "The rest of the raw materials, Agent Barton can get his hands on pretty easily. The only major component he still needs is a power source of high-energy density. Something to kick-start the Cube."

Agent Hill just rolled her eyes. "When did you become an expert on thermonuclear astrophysics?"

"Last night," he answered promptly.

Everyone just stared at him.

"The packet," he explained. "Selvig's notes, the extraction theory papers. Am I the only one who did the readings?"

Jamie frowned. She really didn't understand half of what he'd just said. All this science stuff was way too hard for her to comprehend. She looked up at Steve hoping he'd be able to clarify what Tony had said, but he wasn't looking at her. He was shaking his head in disbelief of how big of a showman Tony was, and voicing his own question.

"Does Loki need any particular kind of power source?"

It was actually Bruce who answered him.

"He would have to heat the Cube to a hundred and twenty million Kelvin just to break through the Coulomb barrier."

"Unless Selvig has figured out how to stabilize the quantum tunneling effect," Tony argued, walking around the table to speak directly to Bruce.

"Well," said Bruce, now in pure scientist mode. "If he could do that, he could heavy ion fusion at any reactor on the planet."

Tony laughed, and shook hands with the mild-mannered doctor.

"Finally, someone who speaks English."

Steve looked over at Hill. "Is that what just happened?" he asked her.

"Absolutely not," Jamie groaned, rubbing her temples. "I think my head hurts from all this science talk…"

Steve patted her shoulder in comfort, but Tony and Bruce ignored her.

"It's good to meet you, Doctor Banner," Tony said to Bruce. "Your work on antielectron collision is unparalleled. And I'm a huge fan of the way you lose control and turn into an enormous green rage-monster."

Bruce blinked, unsure whether he should be offended or flattered. He settled for unsure.

"Thanks…" he said quietly.

Fury had been walking back into the room at this time, and quickly spoke up to get Tony's attention.

"Doctor Banner is only here to track the Cube. I was hoping you might join him."

"I would start with that stick of his," said Steve at once. "It may be magical, but it works an awful lot like a Hydra weapon."

"I don't know about that," said Fury. "But it is powered by the Cube. And I would like to know how Loki used it to turn two of the sharpest men I know into his personal flying monkeys."

Jamie perked up at this, her face in a wide smile upon hearing a reference to one of her most favorite things in the whole world.

"Monkeys?" repeated Thor, puzzled. "I do not understand."

"I do!" she said eagerly, waving her hand. She also said it a bit too loudly. Every head at the table snapped in her direction, but Tony was rolling his eyes.

Jamie flushed crimson, and sunk low in her chair in embarrassment.

"I… I love _The Wizard of Oz…"_ she mumbled in an embarrassed, squeaky voice.

Steve patted her head, but otherwise her little embarrassing moment was ignored, because Tony was turning his attention back to Bruce.

"Shall we play, Doctor?"

Bruce nodded, and gestured back out to the hall.

"This way, sir."

The two of them left.

As Jamie watched them leave, she recalled her earlier want to talk with Tony. He was the only person on board who could answer her questions regarding the rules of prisoners of war. She'd have to follow them.

She looked over at Steve. "Do you mind if I go, Steve?" she asked. "I want to check something."

"Sure, go right ahead," he answered, standing up from the table and moving towards Fury. "I have something I want to discuss with Fury. Just take your stuff with you."

"'Kay," she said, nodding.

She tucked Pannie under her arm and grabbed her book. She then set her new skateboard down on the ground before stepping up onto it, and wheeling herself out of the main room and down the hall. As long as she was to be here on this ship, she might as well practice getting used to skateboarding. She had nothing better to do.

It took her awhile to find the lab. The ship was huge and she got lost several times from the various numbers of twists and turns around every corner, but she eventually managed to track Tony down. He and Bruce were firing up the computers in the very pristine white, futuristic lab, and talking in low voices about the energy readings surrounding Loki's scepter. Neither of them noticed her right away.

Jamie adjusted her book so it would be in the same hand as the one holding Pannie under her arm, and collected her skateboard off the ground before clearing her throat to get their attention. Both men turned.

"Hi," she said, nodding simply.

"Oh, hello Jamie," said Bruce with a small nod of his own.

Tony sized her from head-to-toe, and then smirked. "Welcome to the lab, Girl That Never Grew Up," he said with a chuckle.

Jamie blinked. "What did you call me?"

"You like _Peter Pan,"_ Tony stated with a shrug. "Technically, you're the same as him. You never grew up."

"Oh."

She shifted uncomfortably at that. She liked being a kid just fine, but this talk was reminding her of her skipped birthday, and she didn't like it. No one deserves to skip their birthday.

"How old are you anyway?" Tony asked, shifting his attention back to one of the computer screens as he spoke. "You're about… I don't know… eighty maybe? And yet you don't look a day over eleven. Twelve, at the most."

"I'm _ten,"_ she growled, clenching her fists a bit at the thought. "Just ten! Seventy-seven if you're being technical."

Bruce frowned at her stressing her age.

"Is something wrong?" he asked her, noting the annoyed look on her face. "Why are you so upset?"

"It's… it's nothing," she said, folding her arms to hide her discomfort. "Don't worry about it."

Bruce's frown only grew, but Tony just shrugged. He personally didn't care either way if she hated being a kid still. He'd just been curious when he asked her about her age. He was not looking for specifics.

"So, what can we do for you, Mini-Cap?" he asked, still not really looking at her but at the display screen.

Jamie tilted her head to the side in confusion.

"Mini-Cap?" she repeated.

"Well, your Gramps' partner, and he's the bigger one out of the two of you. That's makes you the Mini-Cap."

Jamie stomped her foot in annoyance. "I told you not to call Steve that! He's not an old man!"

"If you're being technical, kid, he is. You both are. You said yourself you're seventy-seven, and that would make him ninety-two. You're both old."

"I don't get you," she said abruptly, simply staring at him in both annoyance and confusion. "Really, I don't. You're Howie's son. He was a nice man. Why are you treating me as though I'm worthless? You actually look a lot like him, you know. Why don't you act like him?"

There was a very long, very tense silence in the lab. Bruce became seemingly interested again in studying Loki's scepter, but Tony did not say anything for a long while. Jamie blinked. She didn't understand what she'd said that made him so quiet all the sudden, but she had a feeling she'd just brought up something very bad.

"Listen, kid," said Tony after a very pregnant pause. "I don't know what sort of relationship you had with my father, especially considering that you apparently call him Howie and not Howard, but you do not talk about him in my presence again."

"What?"

"Let's just say that although you had a good relationship with my old man, I did not. Let's leave it at that."

Jamie blinked at him, not understanding. "Are you saying that the reason you hate me is because you had a bad relationship with Howie and I didn't?"

"I don't hate you, kid. But I do hate my old man. Now, if the only reason you came in here was simply to say that then—"

"I came in here to ask you something!"

At that, Tony's angry expression melted off his face. He actually looked somewhat interested in what she had to say.

"Me?" he replied in a bit of disbelief. "Are you sure you don't mean Mr. Big and Green over there? He's the one that tried to duplicate the stuff that made you and the Capsicle what you are."

Jamie blinked for a moment.

"No, but now that the idea is in my head, I do have a question for him." She turned to Bruce. "You don't mind answering a question for me, do you?" she asked.

"Technically, that was a question," said Tony with a chuckle.

Both Jamie and Bruce ignored him.

"Go right ahead," Bruce told her.

"Well… why did you do it? Try to recreate the super-soldier serums?" she asked.

Bruce blinked, but then looked rather sheepish and uncomfortable.

"It was really just so we could see if we could," he explained. "Those serums that made you and Rogers into the super-soldiers of both today and tomorrow were powerful stuff, and we wanted to see if we could somehow rediscover it."

"Were you going to use it to make more people into soldiers like me and Steve?" she asked curiously.

"Not like you," Bruce answered at once. "Everyone on the team responsible for trying to remake Erskine's formulas agreed that if we somehow managed to find only the serum that was used specifically on you, it would not be used on any children."

"Why?"

"I'll tell you why," said Tony, shifting Jamie's focus back to him. "It was so we didn't do what they're doing in South Africa."

"South Africa?"

"You need to understand, Jamie, that although you were made into a child super-soldier for a noble reason, since then other countries have copied the idea of child soldiers," said Bruce, taking off his reading glasses and slowly peering away from his readings of Loki's scepter to turn and look at the little girl fully.

"Are you saying there are other kids out there who have been made into super-soldiers just like me?"

"Soldier, yes," said Tony with a shrug. "Super, no."

Jamie looked confused.

"In South Africa, there are currently a lot civil wars going on," Bruce explained. "And the people there are… well…"

"They're fuckers is what they are."

Jamie wouldn't stand for the offensive language. She marched up to Tony, and punched him in the gut. Tony keeled over a bit from having the wind knocked out of him.

"No swearing!" she admonished.

Bruce and Tony stared at her for a moment, but she made a face telling them to continue, so they did.

"Well, the real soldiers down there right now are lazy," Bruce continued. "The best way that I can explain it to you is that they want to win their war, but they don't want to get themselves killed, so…"

"So they take and use kids to fight," Jamie automatically finished.

Both Bruce and Tony nodded.

Jamie seethed in anger at what she'd been heard. It was one thing to take and use children to learn how to fight in wars in the future like she'd initially been made for, but it was another to force children to fight if they didn't want to.

"Why hasn't America done anything? Or even S.H.I.E.L.D.?" she demanded.

"Well, technically America is trying to stop it," Bruce explained. "There are politicians who are trying to raise awareness on the issue."

Jamie didn't like the answer, but she shrugged it away. She didn't come here to ask about that. She came to talk to Tony.

"Whatever," she grumbled. "Anyway, Tony, I still have something I need to ask you."

"Fine. Shoot."

Jamie took a deep breath, building up the courage to ask one of her long-awaited questions, and then blurted it right out.

"What are the rules that have to be followed when you're a prisoner of war?"

Tony hadn't been paying her much attention when he told her to fire off her question. He had turned his eyes back to the display screen and had been prepared to just give her an absent-minded answer without much thought. Upon hearing her question though, he whirled back around and stared at her. As did Bruce.

"I'm sorry… what?"

"What are the rules that have to be followed when you're a prisoner of war?"

Tony's eyes flicked over to Bruce, but Bruce was just as equally puzzled. Neither of the men had any idea what she was even talking about.

Jamie huffed, and set both her stuffed panda and her book onto one of the many counters in the room so she could fold her arms and begin tapping the toe of one of her red boots impatiently.

"Why aren't you giving me an answer?" she asked.

But Tony really didn't know what to say to her. He hadn't slightest clue what in fuck she was talking about.

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said finally.

"Sure you do," she said in reply. "You're the only person on board this ship who does. You were kidnapped. Just like I was."

"Kidnapped?"

"It was in your file, on how that terrorist organization called the Ten Rings kidnapped you when you were in Afghanistan a couple years ago. When they took you, you became a prisoner of war. So, that means you're the only person on this ship that can explain to me what the rules as to how you're supposed to treat prisoner of war are. I need you to tell me. Oh! And while I'm on the subject of kidnapping, can you also explain to me what you do to stop the nightmares? I'm growing tired of always having to sleep with a gag in my mouth so Steve doesn't hear me wake up screaming."

This time, Tony and Bruce exchanged looks of bewilderment. While they still didn't fully understand what she meant by the whole 'rules of prisoners of war' thing, what she said about tying a gag in her mouth before going to sleep was nothing short of shocking.

"Is Rogers aware that you're asking Stark this?" Bruce asked. "Or about that gag?"

"No," she said simply as she shook her head. "I can't let him know. If he finds out that I still have nightmares, he'll ask what they're about, and that means I'll be forced to have to tell him about them."

"And… what exactly happens in those nightmares?" said Tony slowly. Even he was willing to put aside his sarcastic persona for a few minutes so as to figure out what this little girl was talking about.

But Jamie just shook her head. "I'm not going to tell you."

"Jamie—"

"Nuh-uh. I don't want to relive them right now."

Tony and Bruce just exchanged another look. This sounded serious, especially since it was coming out of the mouth of a ten-year-old girl.

"Look, kid," said Tony after a moment. "I don't know exactly what happened to you back when that platoon snatched you back in the '40's, or of how you got it into your head that there are rules that have to be followed when there are prisoners of war in custody, but I'm not telling you anything about that until you tell me why you want to know."

Jamie froze. She couldn't tell him that. If she told him all about how Trent had been screaming that before she'd been forced to shoot that Hydra squadron leader in the head, there was a good chance that either he or Bruce would go and tell Steve. That was something she couldn't let happen.

"Why can't you just answer my question?" she asked. "Why do you have to be so cryptic? You're supposed to be the most easy-going guy on board. Why won't you answer me?"

"Hey, I stated my terms for answering your question," Tony shrugged, trying to seem nonchalant. "It's up to you if you want to know the answer that badly."

Jamie sighed. "Forget it, then," she muttered.

"Wait, seriously kid. Tell us."

"No." she said, shaking her head from side-to-side, trying to hide her sad expression. "I'm not telling you anything. You can't make me."

She began shuffling miserably about the room on her little skateboard, ignoring the perplexed looks she was getting from both Tony and Bruce. They were both very concerned. They were starting to wonder whether or not there was more to Jamie Elizabeth Harper than what met the eye.

Was her mentor even fully aware of what went on in her head? Or of what had happened to her when she was kidnapped? It was one thing that they didn't know, but did he? It was very worrisome, especially since she looked so sad right now after having brought it up.

Now, Tony was not generally considered to be a nice person. In fact, many people consider him to be a downright arrogant prick at times, but even he could recognize that something had to be done in order to get the kid out of the dumps. He glanced down at her skateboard, and a wicked idea came to his mind.

"Hey kid," he said. "How would you like me to improve that board of yours?"

At his words, Jamie stopped wheeling around and looked up at Tony, blinking a bit in confusion.

"What?"

"I can enhance it if you like."

"What, you mean like add a paint job or something?"

"No," said Tony, smirking a bit. "I have a better idea than that. After all, I did not earn the nickname of The Da Vinci of the Modern Era for doing paint jobs. I was thinking something a little more… _creative."_


	4. Rage

**Man, I am exhausted...**

 **I woke up at 9:00 A.M. today in order to see an early showing of the just released Jurassic World, and it is currently 2:09 A.M. as I am posting this. I am so very tired... Yawn... After I saw the movie, which was _amazing_ I might add, I came home, did some work around the house so my Mom and I can get some stuff donated to Goodwill, and then got back to work on writing this.**

 **This chapter was hard to write. There are a lot of original scenes in it, and it was difficult to make sure that I captured everyone's characters well in my original dialogue. This chapter is also very original plotline heavy. It's... well, read and see. I don't want to give anything away.**

 **As always, let me stop and thank my reviewers:**

 **\- ZabuzasGirl**

 **\- opalwolf12**

 **\- storiesarebetter**

 **Please people! Be nice to me and review like these people when you're done reading! I love reviews! And I'd _especially_ like to get some reviews for this chapter! This chapter had been planned waaaaaaaay in advance. I hope I did it justice, because I really needed to capture the emotions necessary for what happens!**

 **Disclaimer for Liberty Belle: The Avengers Assemble is available in the AU note of chapter one.**

 **Happy Reading!**

* * *

 **Chapter Four: Rage**

Steve made his way purposefully down the halls of the Helicarrier, his footfalls nice and even on the tiled floor. He was trying to find Jamie. It had been over an hour since he'd last seen her, and he figured he'd check up on her. When he'd checked their bedroom on the ship, though, she wasn't there, and there was no sign that she'd even visited the location recently. He remembered her telling him earlier that she found it easy to get lost in this ship, and he was starting to think that she might have been right. He was quite certain that he'd walked down this same corridor at least twice in the past fifteen minutes. He had to find her in case she managed to get herself all turned around.

As he turned down a corner, he heard voices coming from a room further down the passageway.

"The gamma readings are definitely consistent with Selvig's reports of the Tesseract. But it's going to take weeks to process."

"If we bypass their mainframe and direct route to the Homer cluster, we can clock this at around six hundred teraflops."

It sounded like Bruce and Tony in the lab. Steve really wasn't all that thrilled on going to speak with Tony again, as he truly found the man to be infuriating, but maybe one of them had seen Jamie. He walked up to the door to the lab, still hearing their voices floating down the hall.

"All I packed was a toothless," he heard Bruce say.

"You know, you should come by Stark Tower sometime. Top ten floors, all R and D. You'd love it. It's candy land."

"Thanks, but the last time I was in New York, I kind of broke Harlem."

"Well, I promise a stress-free environment. No tension, no surprises…"

Steve had just entered the doorway of the lab, and was about to knock on the framework and call out to get their attention, when he suddenly witnessed Stark suddenly use some sort of pointy device to give Bruce an electric shock.

"Ow!" Bruce lightly yelped, turning in Tony's direction.

Tony frowned, seemingly upset that he hadn't been able to get the famed scientist the slightest bit mad.

"Nothing?" he asked, a bit disappointed he hadn't made him transform.

Steve was furious. What the hell did that bastard think he was doing?

"Hey!" he shouted, marching fully into the room. "Are you _nuts?"_

"Jury's out," Tony muttered lightly to Bruce. "You really have got a lid on it, haven't you? What's your secret? Mellow jazz? Bongo drums? Huge bag of weeds?"

Steve just shook his head in disbelief. He seriously couldn't believe that this man was the son of his old friend Howard Stark. Howard could be a bit sarcastic at times, but he had nowhere near the same amount of arrogance as Tony did. If Tony didn't possess his father's almost completely identical looks as well as his last name, he'd never have believed that they were related at all.

"Is everything a joke to you?" he asked.

"Funny things are," Tony happily admitted.

"Threatening the safety of everyone on this ship isn't funny. No offense, Doc."

Not just everyone, but especially Jamie. For all Steve knew, she could be right outside the door right now. If she were to walk by and Tony's poking and prodding caused Bruce to transform, she would be the victim of simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was a horrible thought to him.

"It's all right," said Bruce with a wave of his hand. "I wouldn't have come aboard if I couldn't handle pointy things."

Tony snickered, and moved over to one of the counters in the room where he'd left his bag of blueberries.

"You're tip-toeing, big man. You need to strut."

"And you need to focus on the problem, Mr. Stark," said Steve, with narrowed eyes.

"Do you think I'm not?" Tony countered. "Why did Fury call us in? Why now? Why not before? What isn't he telling us? I can't do the equation unless I have the variables."

Steve scoffed and rolled his eyes. "You think Fury's hiding something?"

"He's a spy. Captain, he's _the_ spy. His secrets have secrets. It's bugging him, too," he said, popping a blueberry in his mouth as he gestured over to Bruce, who looked as though he really did not want to get involved in this conversation. "Isn't it?"

"Uh… I just want to finish my work here, and…"

"Doctor?" asked Steve, encouraging him to speak his mind.

Bruce seemed to deliberate for another moment or so, but then he took his reading glasses off and spoke.

"'A warm light for all mankind,'" he said. "Loki's jab at Fury about the Cube."

"I heard it."

"Well, I think that was meant for you," he said, turning to Tony. Tony raised a brow, but still offered the scientist one of his blueberries. Bruce took a couple out from the bag and went on. "Even if Barton didn't tell Loki about the tower, it was still all over the news."

"The Stark Tower?" Steve asked. "That big ugly—"

Tony actually looked annoyed, silently daring Steve to continue that sentence.

"—building in New York?"

"It's powered by an arc reactor, a self-sustaining energy source," Bruce explained. "That building will run itself for, what, a year?"

"It's just a prototype," Tony shrugged, and then turned back to Steve. "I'm kind of the only name in clean energy right now. That's what he's getting at."

"So, why didn't S.H.I.E.L.D. bring him in on the Tesseract project?" Bruce pointed out. "What are they doing in the energy business in the first place?"

"I should probably look into that," said Tony, moving around the table to grab an electronic file device. "Once my decryption program finished breaking into all of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s secure files."

Steve didn't even bother trying to hide his shock at this.

"I'm sorry, did you say—?"

"J.A.R.V.I.S. has been running it since I hit the bridge," Tony said, not even bothering to look from the file as he spoke. "In a few hours, I'll know every dirty secret S.H.I.E.L.D. has ever tried to hide." He held out the bag to Steve. "Blueberry?"

Steve ignored the offer. He couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"Yet you're confused about why they didn't want you around."

"An intelligence organization that fears intelligence?" Tony countered. "Historically, not awesome."

Steve sighed. "I think Loki's trying to wind us up. This is a man who means to start a war and if we don't stay focused, he'll succeed. We have orders. We should follow them."

"Followings not really my style," Tony shrugged again, tossing a couple more berries into his mouth.

"And you're all about style aren't you?"

Now Tony looked somewhat annoyed. "Of the people in this room, which one is, A, wearing a spangly outfit, and, B, not of use?"

"Steve," said Bruce quietly, bringing the super-soldier's attention over to him. "Tell me none of this smells a little funny to you."

Steve didn't answer right away. He really hated to admit it, considering that one the people that had brought the matter up was Tony, but they had made some very good points.

He sighed exasperatedly and shook his head. "I didn't come in here to argue with either of you," he said finally. "I came to ask if either of you have seen Jamie. She left the main room not long after you two did. Have you guys seen her? She told me earlier that she found it easy to get lost on board. I'm worried."

"Oh, she's—"

"Tony! Tony! It works! It works!"

All three heads in the room turned as Jamie came bounding inside the lab with her skateboard in her hands and an excited smile on her face. She was all but bouncing up and down as she rushed inside. Upon seeing her mentor with the other two grownups, she promptly greeted him jubilantly.

"Oh! Hi, Steve! Did you come to talk with Tony and Bruce, too? They've both been really nice to me! Especially Tony!"

Steve blinked. He had no idea what had caused his young apprentice to suddenly warm up to either of the men, particularly because one of them so-happened to be the arrogant asshole known as Tony Stark.

"Uh… what?"

"He made me something!" she explained, holding up her skateboard. "He improved the skateboard! I was just testing it out up and down the hallways! It's awesome!"

"Well," said Tony, looking rather smug as he crossed his arms and leaned up against one of the counters. "It's not exactly a skateboard anymore, Mini-Cap."

Steve was perturbed. What had Tony done to it?

"What are you talking about?"

"Watch!"

Jamie set the skateboard down on the floor, and stepped up onto it, her right foot in front of her left. She stomped her left foot down on the back of the board. Instantly, the board began ejecting some type of fire underneath it, and it and she rose up approximately six inches above the ground. Jamie squealed in delight upon hovering in the air, and began urging the board forward so she zoom all around the room.

Steve's jaw dropped. He couldn't believe what he was seeing.

Tony had taken her skateboard and turned it into a hoverboard.

"This board is just incredible!" she whooped, landing once again and running right to Tony before jumping up and down excitedly. "Thank you for making it for me, Tony!"

Tony smirked. "You're welcome, kid."

Jamie smiled, and picked up the board from the ground. She moved to turn and leave the room, but Steve suddenly snatched the hoverboard out of her hands.

"Steve!" she said, surprised. "What're you—?"

"You're not getting on this thing again, Jamie. Not unless Stark here assures me that it's safe."

"Steve! Come on! I'm finally flying! You know how much I've always wanted to fly!"

"You'll get it back if Stark manages to convince me that it's safe." He rounded on the famed inventor. "Explain to me how this works."

"It's just a prototype, but it's basically the same technology that enables my suit to fly," Tony shrugged. "Two mini thrusters on the bottom set up right in between both sets of the wheels, so she can still wheel around if she wants. If she wanted to, she could probably safely reach a speed of up to eighty miles per hour."

"That's the safest it will go?"

"Well, if in a direct crisis, she might be able to push it up to ninety, but I wouldn't recommend it. And definitely no heavy lifting while using it, at least not unless I remake the board itself into some kind of titanium frame. Can't do it now, though. That'll have to wait until later. So long as she remembers those two rules, she should be fine."

"Can I have my board back now, Steve? Pleeeeease?"

Steve was silent for a moment as he thought over what Tony had told him. Finally he sighed, and handed the board back over to Jamie.

"Here," he said. "Go play, okay?"

"'Kay! See you, Cap! Bye, Tony! Bye, Bruce!"

She grabbed her abandoned plush panda doll and her copy of _Peter Pan_ off a counter that Steve hadn't even noticed until right then, hopped back onto her new hoverboard, and cheered wholeheartedly as she zipped out of the room, her whoops of joy and laughter echoing out behind her as she left.

As soon as she was gone, Steve rounded on Tony, who immediately looked mockingly amused.

"Somehow, I get the feeling that I'm about to receive a verbal lashing."

"You should have consulted me before making something like that for her. Jamie is not just some guinea pig for you to test your new inventions on! What if she had gotten hurt?!"

"Relax, Cap. I told you, she's perfectly fine."

"What if something had happened?! We may not see eye to eye on things, Stark, but I draw the line with you testing your equipment on my sidekick! Jamie is my responsibility!"

"Hey, believe it or not, I was actually trying to be nice to her."

"You really do not want to act all high and mighty with me right now, Stark!"

"I'm actually being serious," Tony said, his brows narrowed as he set down the bag of blueberries and folded his arms. "I did it for two reasons. Reason number one being that I remembered my old man always talking about how much wanted to fly, so I figured I'd make that dream come true. Reason number two was that I was trying to cheer her up."

"Cheer her up?"

"Yeah. Does she have PTSD, or something?"

Steve stared, not knowing what that meant.

"Post Traumatic Stress Disorder," Tony explained. "It's a mental illness."

"If you are implying that my sidekick is insane, you have three seconds to retract that statement or you will be very, _very_ sorry!"

"Cap, I just told you that I'm being serious. I think that kid of yours has problems."

"Explain."

"She came in here about an hour ago, and started asking all these weird questions."

"What do you mean?"

"She has it in her head that because I was technically kidnapped by the terrorist group the Ten Rings two years ago, that means I'm like her because she got abducted by some platoon back before you two became blocks of ice."

"She mentioned that once. I'm well aware of that thought process, strange as it is," said Steve folding his arms.

"Yeah, well because of that, she somehow has the idea that because I was taken by terrorists, that automatically means that I must know what the rules to treating prisoners of war are."

Steve blinked.

"Wait, what?"

"I'm not kidding. She was asking me to tell her what they are."

"And what exactly did you tell her?"

"Nothing. I deflected it back to her to try and trick her into telling me why she wanted to know. She wouldn't say. And, believe or not, that's not the most shocking thing she asked and ended up saying."

"What else did she say?"

"You're not gonna like it."

"Tell me!"

"She wanted to know if I ever get nightmares from the incident, and if so, to tell her what I do to make them stop, because she's getting tired of always waking up screaming from her own."

"Now I know you're lying. She's only ever had one nightmare from her kidnapping incident, and that was back when we were still living in 1945."

"Correction: that's the only incident you know of. She told me that she's been keeping the rest of her nightmares a secret from you by tying a gag in her mouth every night before going to bed."

For a long time, Steve did not reply. He simply stared at the multi-billionaire trying to process that information. There was no way what Tony was telling him could be true.

"You have three seconds to admit if you are lying to me about this, Stark. If you don't, you will actually be _wishing_ you were dealing with Banner when he's lost control instead of me. No offense, Doctor."

"None taken, but Stark's not lying, Rogers," Bruce told him. "I was here in the room when that girl came in and began asking him these questions. I even asked if you were even aware about any of this, and she told us she didn't want you to find out."

"Indeed. The only reason I'm even telling you is because I want to know if you even know what the hell happened to the kid and why she was asking me about all this. What's going on with her?"

"And what's her deal with her age? We were just nonchalantly asking her how old she was, and she got all defensive and changed the topic."

"Her age?" Steve repeated. "I have no idea what that's about. As for what happened to her before when Hydra took her… I honestly don't know. She never told me what happened. She never told anyone."

Bruce frowned. "I'm not generally one to get involved in something like this," he said slowly. "And I do not like telling someone else how they should raise their kid. I'm not that type of person. I like to stay neutral in these types of matters. But I know a tiny bit about psychology, and judging by what that girl said to Stark and me, it's my professional opinion that she is not okay. I suggest that you sit down with her when this is all over and try to persuade her to tell you about what happened. Something happened to that girl. I don't know what, but _something_ happened."

Steve simply stared at them for a long time. He really didn't know what to say, or even think. They were both basically just told him that his little apprentice might possibly have a few screws loose in her head. He wasn't sure whether he should be angry that they thought this about her, or worried if they could be right.

"Just find the Cube," he said at last. He turned on his heel, and marched out of the room. He couldn't think about all of this in front of them.

As he made his way down the hall, the thoughts reeled about in his head. He wasn't sure what to think. Back when he and Jamie had been still been living in '45, the question about Jamie's mental stability had been proposed by his love interest Agent Peggy Carter and Colonel Phillips. They had suggested that maybe they should look into some kind of psychiatric therapy for her. Phillips had even suggested the electric chair, but Steve had promptly stomped his foot on that idea, very much enraged by his suggestion. There were other methods of therapy available for treating a troubled child back then. He wasn't sure what types of therapy were available in this new era of time, but he wasn't entirely sure if it was necessary. He knew Jamie much longer than either Tony or Bruce had, and she seemed to be fine.

She wasn't crazy.

Actually, now when he stopped and thought about it, if they hadn't been lying and Jamie really had been honest with them about these so-called nightmares she was having and questions she had about her captivity, he was actually a little annoyed. And mad. If she had questions, why hadn't she come to him about them? He would've answered them. And why didn't she want him to know she still had nightmares? Was she ashamed of them? Did they terrify her so much that she didn't want to tell him about them? Regardless, she should not be sleeping with a gag in her mouth at night. That was messed up.

What the hell was going on with his protégé?

He'd have to worry about her later, though. Right now, the more pressing issue was what was currently going on with Loki and the Tesseract. As much as it pained him to say, Tony and Bruce definitely made good points when they said that Fury and S.H.I.E.L.D. might be hiding something. Was there something going on behind the scenes that they weren't being told? He didn't want to believe it, but the more he stopped and thought about it, something definitely felt off.

He'd find and talk to Jamie again later.

Let her have some fun with that new hoverboard for right now.

It was time to do some snooping.

* * *

"Weeeeeeeeee!" Jamie screamed at the top of her lungs as she raced down the halls on her new hoverboard. She was flying down the halls, her hair whipping out behind her with her hands outstretched on other side, Pannie in one hand and _Peter Pan_ in the other. She would generally startle many other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and many of them had to leap out of her path to avoid getting run over, but Jamie was having way too much fun to stop and apologize for both scaring and nearly running them down. She loved her new hoverboard. It was simply amazing.

She'd only meant to fly down the hall to her and Steve's shared bedroom so she could put away her book and Pannie for a little while, but the twists and turns of the Helicarrier had gotten her all confused again, and after a while, she wounded up realizing she wasn't even really searching that hard for her room anymore, but simply flying freely in joy. She was surprised to discover that she didn't even care all that much.

She was having fun.

That had been all but a foreign concept to her ever since she woke up in this strange time period two weeks ago.

Screw rules. She wanted to enjoy this. She was flying. She was fulfilling one of her lifelong dreams. She was entitled to be excited about this.

As she turned her board so as to turn a corner, she began to sing from the thrill of the adrenaline one of her all time favorite songs.

" _Come Josephine in my flying machine,"_ she half-sang, half-shouted in joy. _"And it's up she goes… Up she goes…"_

As she was preparing herself to sing the first verse, an arm suddenly shot out from an open doorway, and Jamie slammed into it rather fast. She yelped in alarm as she tumbled out from on top of her hoverboard, and slipped and fell upon the flooring of the hallway. The hoverboard continued flying on down the hall for a moment, but now having no rider to keep it moving, it soon drifted to a complete stop.

Jamie didn't even notice, she was still sitting on the floor and busy rubbing the back of her neck, as she twisted it a bit when she fell.

"Ow! What'd you do that for?!" she said angrily, looking furiously up at whoever had forced to come to a complete stop in the hall.

To her surprise, it was Natasha. She was looking down at the little girl, trying to keep a stern expression on her face even though she was actually amused.

"I had to get you to stop. You've been scaring the other agents with your antics."

"Oh!" said Jamie, her cheeks red hot as she hastily got back up. "I'm sorry… I was just so happy to fly… I wasn't thinking…"

"So I can tell," said Natasha, still trying to fight the urge to smile.

"I'm sorry, Tasha."

"Tasha?" Natasha repeated, a bit puzzled.

"Short for Na-tasha. I thought it was nice… Do you not like it? I won't call you that if you don't…"

"No, Tasha's fine," Natasha said with a wave of her hand. "I like it just fine. Just don't call me Nat. I hate that."

"'Kay," said Jamie, nodding to show she understood.

"So," said Natasha as she strolled over to the abandoned hoverboard and picked it up. She looked at it curiously. "How'd you get your hands on something like this?"

"Tony made it for me!"

"Stark made you this?"

"Yeah, from my skateboard! He made it into a hoverboard!"

" _Stark_ made you this?"

"Yeah… why? Why do you look so surprised?"

"I've known him for a while now. He's not generally the type to make someone something to just be nice to them."

"Well he did with me! And I'm glad he did! I love my new hoverboard!"

Jamie gently took the board back from Natasha, and got back on it again. She rose up in the air a couple inches, but did not zoom off. She waited expectantly for Natasha to say something.

After a couple moments, Natasha seemed to just shake her head, and then looked back up at the girl.

"Well, I understand that you like it, but you can't keep zooming around like that back and forth in here. The other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents are working."

"Oh, sorry," said Jamie. "I just meant to fly back to mine and Steve's bedroom so I could put away Pannie and my book. I got lost, though, and started to play instead."

"Follow me. I'll take you."

Natasha led Jamie, still hovering slowly behind her, down several hallways. As they made their way through the ship, Jamie thought about her former capture by Hydra guards, particularly about what that one guard wanted her to do before Trent botched up their escape plan: take off her dress. She knew that that was something she could never talk about with Steve. He was a man, and she was a girl. She'd never be comfortable with telling about that particular part of her capture, but she wondered if Natasha would be willing to explain to her what that guard wanted to do. She was woman, and even though Jamie didn't know her very well, she somehow felt more comfortable just with the idea of asking her about that than she ever had with Steve.

"Here's your room," Natasha said suddenly as they turned another corner. It was the first door on the right.

"Thank you," she said, stepping off of the hoverboard. Natasha lingered in the doorway as Jamie entered the small living space, and deposited her plush toy and her fiction novel on the bed.

"Well, if you don't need anything else, Jamie, I'll be going—"

"Tasha, wait!" said Jamie, the hoverboard under her arm as she ran back over to the doorway to the little bedroom.

"Yes?"

"Well, I… I wondered if you'd mind…"

"What?"

"I was just wondering… could I ask you something?"

Natasha was puzzled. Being trained as a master Russian assassin and spy had taught her how to read people very easily. She could tell by the way that Jamie was shuffling about uncertainly and the way she was wringing her hands that something was troubling the girl. She wasn't sure what the girl might want, but she seemed to be worried about something.

"Go right ahead."

"Well, I just wanted to know… What—"

"Agent Romanoff!"

Jamie and Natasha both turned. Agent Coulson was walking down the hall, and looking directly at Natasha as he spoke.

"Agent Romanoff," he repeated. "Fury wants you to try interrogating Loki. We need to figure out what his plan is."

"Just as soon as I answer Jamie's question," Natasha replied. She looked back down at the girl. "You were saying, Jamie?"

But Jamie vehemently shook her head. Coulson may have been a nice and a little strange, but she did not feel comfortable asking Natasha about the incident in her cell with him here. He was a man. She didn't want him to know about that.

"I-it's nothing, really…" she said a bit nervously. "D-don't worry about it!"

Natasha wasn't stupid. She could tell that Coulson's untimely arrival had somehow spooked the girl into hiding her question. The question was, why?

"Are you sure?" she asked. She gestured to the still open bedroom. "We can go in there and talk for a little while. Loki can wait."

"N-no, really!" Jamie insisted, shaking her head frantically. "I-it… It wasn't anything all that important…"

Natasha frowned. Judging by her nervous behavior, she assumed that whatever she wanted to say was important, but it seemed as though the little girl wasn't going to tell her anything now. She really wanted to press the issue, but Coulson cleared his throat.

"I'll walk her to the main room. You need to get going. The cell's straight down this hallway and turn down the third right. It's the second door on the left."

"Done," said Natasha. She turned back to look at Jamie one last time. "If you change your mind, come and find me later. I'll make the time to talk to you."

"'K-kay…"

Natasha frowned, but walked away down the hall.

Jamie watched her leave with a sad expression. She really wished Coulson hadn't shown up when he did, then she could've had the opportunity to at last get an answer to one of her many questions.

As soon as Natasha was gone, Coulson turned to look at her.

"So, Thor was actually requesting to speak with you," he said.

Jamie fought the urge to freeze up. Even though Thor had not harmed her before when he accidentally took her with him when he grabbed Loki upon first returning to Earth, he still intimidated her. His thunder and lightning powers alarmed her a tiny bit.

"M-me?" she asked, squeaking a bit.

"Yeah," Coulson said with a small chuckle. "You apparently made quite the impression on him earlier, grabbing his cloak right before he leapt out of the Quinjet. He's very curious about you."

"B-but… he's scares me…"

"Really?" he said, a bit surprised by her revelation.

Jamie reluctantly nodded. "Y-yeah… his powers… they freak me out."

"Don't worry. He's on our side. There's nothing to fear, but if you're still afraid, I'll protect you."

"Y-you will?"

"Sure. Agent Phil Coulson at your service for all protection detail needs."

Jamie laughed at that.

"Okay, then. Let me just grab something real quick."

Jamie reentered her bedroom for a moment, but returned a moment later carrying her copy of _Norse Gods: Real or Not Real?_ She picked her hoverboard up off the ground, and then looked back up at Coulson.

"Will you show me the way back to the main room? I keep getting lost."

"Sure. It's this way."

As Jamie walked behind Coulson through the halls of the Helicarrier to the main room, she forced her mind not to go back to the dimly lit cell in her memories. She couldn't let herself think about that if she was going to see Thor. If she were to let her mind wander back to those torture sessions of electrocution, she was quite certain she might embarrass herself. She had to force herself to count each step as they walked in order not to start panicking.

She wasn't even sure why she felt so nervous about Thor. Thor was on their side. He wasn't going to hurt her. If he wanted to, he could have easily done it earlier when she gave him a reason to be angry with her by snagging onto his cloak. But still, his control of lightning scared her, and she couldn't help but feel worried that he might still be angry enough with her to attack her with it if he were given another opportunity. She'd have to apologize to him about grabbing his cape when she saw him.

As she and Coulson approached the main room, Jamie forced herself to take a deep breath for courage before following the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent inside. Not much had changed in the past hour since she'd last been in here. Other agents were still running around and working relentlessly on their computers in other to locate Agent Clint Barton, Doctor Erik Selvig, and the Tesseract. Fury was over by the control panels to the ship, talking quietly with Agent Hill, and Thor was lounging over by the large black conference table, apparently just killing time. Upon seeing Coulson and Jamie entering the room, he got to his feet and smiled kindly to them.

"The Son of Coul," he said, nodding to Coulson. Then he turned to Jamie. "The Bell of Liberty." He nodded to her.

"I-it's just J-Jamie when I'm n-not in costume," she stuttered nervously, moving to stand a bit closer to Coulson. "L-Liberty Belle is j-just an alias. J-Jamie is my r-real name…"

Thor's friendly smile faltered a bit from seeing her nervousness, but he nonetheless nodded to her again.

"Young Lady Jamie," he said warmly. "It is a pleasure to see you again."

Jamie gave him a weak smile in return. Telling him it was good to see him again, too, would be a lie, after all.

"I… I wanted to t-tell you," she began hesitantly. "I'm… I'm sorry for g-grabbing onto y-your cloak, earlier…"

"Apology accepted," he replied. "You were just doing your duty. I bear you no ill will."

Jamie didn't say anything back. She just continued to smile weakly up at him.

Thor gazed after her for a moment with a puzzled look on his face, but then turned to speak with Coulson.

"The other people on board tell me that Selvig has not been found yet," he said. "I grow concerned for the others I befriended when I first came to Earth. I fear Loki may have taken them as well."

"No need to worry," said Coulson, waving Thor over to a nearby but still unattended computer. He typed something into the keyboard for a few seconds, but then a picture of a pretty young woman with dark hair appeared on the screen. "As soon as Loki took the doctor, we moved Jane Foster. They've got an excellent observatory in Tromso. She was asked to consult there very suddenly yesterday. Handsome fee, private plane, very remote. She'll be safe."

"Thank you," said the God of Thunder appreciatively, a huge weight lifted off his chest.

Jamie tilted her head to the side, very much confused. She recalled what she read in Selvig's file when she and Steve had been on the Quinjet to get here on the Helicarrier. Jane Foster was an astrophysicist, and along with Doctor Erik Selvig, she and her intern Darcy had been one of the first people to meet Thor when he first came to Earth sometime last year. The fact that Coulson had not mentioned Darcy at all upon telling Thor where Jane Foster was currently was not lost on the girl.

The God of Thunder and Lightning had apparently fallen for a mortal woman.

That made no sense to her, though. Hadn't the book she was reading mentioned previously that he was already married to the Goddess Sif?

"Are you cheating on your wife with that Jane Foster woman?" she blurted out.

Both Thor and Coulson turned to stare at her upon hearing her words.

"I beg your pardon, Young Lady Jamie?" Thor said, blinking a bit upon hearing what the girl had said.

"You're supposed to be married."

"Young Lady Jamie, I have not yet promised myself to any one woman. Lady Jane is the one who holds my heart."

"No, she's _not."_

Jamie flipped through the pages of her book, and found the page that detailed all about Thor himself. She handed it over to him.

"Third paragraph on the page," she said, pointing to the said paragraph so he could see what she was talking about. "From memory, I quote: _Thor was the god of thunder and lightning, and the son of Odin the Allfather of Asgard and his wife Frigga, and was the husband of Sif, the goddess of harvest, fruitfulness, and plenty."_

To Jamie's surprise, Thor began to laugh.

"Might I inquire how you came by this book, Young Lady Jamie?" he asked curiously.

"I… I bought it back when I still living in 1945," she explained hesitantly. "Why?"

"The information is inaccurate. While Lady Sif does exist in Asgard, she is not my promised one. She is merely my good friend, and is a goddess of war, not of bountiful harvest."

"Oh!" said Jamie, her cheeks turning pink as Thor gave her the book back. She looked away as she held the book to her chest. "I… I feel really stupid, now…"

"It is not your fault. There have been many misconceptions over the millennia's of mortals learning about us Asgardians. Do not fret."

"Still, I'm sorry about what I said…" she mumbled.

Thor smiled at her for a moment, and then resumed his prior conversation with Coulson.

"It is no accident, Loki taking Erik Selvig. I dread what he plans for him once he's done. Erik is a good man."

"He talks about you a lot," Coulson said. "You changed his life. You changed everything around here."

"They were better as they were," Thor argued. "We pretend on Asgard that we're more advanced but we come here, battling like bilge snipe."

"Like what?" Coulson repeated.

"Bilge snipe," said Jamie, flipping open her book again until she found entry about the beasts in Norse mythology. "They're monstrous creatures."

"You know, huge, scaly, bit antlers," said Thor, waving his arms around to gesture at the size of beasts. "You don't have those?"

"I don't think so," said Coulson.

Even Jamie shook her head.

"Well, they are repulsive. And they trample everything in their path."

He cut off for a moment and moved to stand by the front windows of the Helicarrier. He peered off solemnly into the distant cloud coverage before speaking again.

"When I first came to Earth, Loki's rage followed me here, and your people paid the price. And now, again. In my youth, I courted war."

"War hasn't started yet."

All three of them turned. None of them had noticed that Fury had moved away from the controls panels during their conversation, and was now speaking directly to Thor.

"You think you could make Loki tell us where the Tesseract is?"

"I do not know. Loki's mind is far afield. It's not just power he craves, it's vengeance, upon me."

"Why does Loki hate you so much?" Jamie piped. "He's your brother, right? Why is he doing all this if it's you he's mad at?"

"Loki found out recently that he was not our father's biological son," Thor answered. "You said it yourself before that he is the son of Frost Giants. Loki was furious upon learning he had lived a lie all of his life. But he is also jealous of the fact that our father decided to name me his heir to the throne. Attacking your planet Earth, the world I love, is his way of retaliation."

"Oh."

"There's no pain that would prize his need from him."

"A lot of guys think that until the pain starts," Fury retorted.

Thor turned back to look at Fury. "What are you asking me to do?" he asked.

"I'm asking, what are you prepared to do?"

"Loki is a prisoner," Thor scoffed.

"Then why do I feel like he's the only person on this boat that wants to be here?" Fury countered.

Thor had no reply to this.

Jamie sighed, and began walking away from the other adults to sit at the conference table and read some more. All this adult talk was boring to her.

Thor noticed her leave, and quietly excused himself from both Fury and Coulson to follow her. He had to admit, this mortal child was definitely intriguing.

Jamie noticed him following her, and visibly tensed. She hated acting like this, but she couldn't help it. He scared her.

Thor frowned upon seeing the child's discomfort.

"Have I done something to offend you, Young Lady Jamie?" he asked.

Jamie's head snapped up at that.

"What? No, why?"

"I can sense that you are not as comfortable around me as you are around the others," he explained. "Have I offended you in some way? Or did I scare you back on the mountaintop? If I have done either of these transgressions, I apologize."

"N-no!" she said immediately, quickly shaking her head. "No, of course not. You… _you_ didn't do anything…"

Thor was confused, as was Fury who had been listening to them talk. They were both staring at her, puzzled.

"I am afraid I do not understand," Thor said.

"I… I don't like electricity," she said quietly.

"Electricity?"

"It's… the basic way I can describe it is that it's similar to lightning," she said. "I… I don't like it. I had… I had a very, _very_ bad experience once… I don't hate you, Thor. You personally seem very nice, but… but your powers scare me…"

A look of understanding crossed Thor's face upon hearing her response, but Fury's eyes narrowed. He wanted to know what she was talking about.

"What exactly are you saying?" he asked.

"I… I don't want to talk about it…"

"Harper—"

"I don't want to talk about it!" she snapped.

Fury frowned. He wished he knew what it was she was saying exactly. It wasn't good if the youngest member of this team was all but terrified of another member.

He opened his mouth to ask her nicely to try and elaborate, but there was a sudden beeping from one of the computers. All three heads turned towards it as Agent Hill motioned him over. Thor and Jamie watched in silence as the two spoke in pantomime for a moment, and then Fury groaned.

"Stark…" he muttered darkly.

Neither Thor nor Jamie had a chance to ask what was happening before Fury turned on his heel, and left the main room, his black trench coat billowing out behind him.

Thor and Jamie exchanged confused looks. That had been odd.

But Thor didn't focus too much on it. He was still trying to make Jamie feel at ease around him.

"Young Lady Jamie," he said kindly, smiling down at her as he spoke. "I may not know what happened to you in your past, but I swear on the soul of my father that you need not fear me. I shall not harm you with my powers or with Mjolnir."

"I… I know that," she mumbled. "I know you wouldn't hurt me… You're one of us… One of the good guy's… It's just hard to actually believe it, though…"

Thor frowned. He meant no ill will to the little girl, but she was obviously very troubled. He had to find a way to make her a bit more comfortable around him. Then he remembered the book in her hands.

"Would you like me to clarify what that book is wrong about?" he asked her.

She blinked up at him. "What?"

"Your book is apparently wrong on some aspects of Asgardian life," he told her. "I can go over it with you and tell you what it has right and what it has wrong."

"Oh, sure," she said.

Thor smiled, and sat down in the chair next to her. Jamie opened the book and began to read.

"Okay, Chapter One: Bifrost, The Rainbow Bridge—"

"Actually, you might have to take a rain check on that offer, Jamie."

Thor and Jamie both turned to look at Coulson. He was turned in their direction, but he was focusing on pressing his hand against his ear to listen to a message being played in his earpiece.

"What?" said Jamie.

"Agent Romanoff got Loki to talk. He's planning to unleash the Hulk. She's requesting that you two meet her out in the hall so as to have more muscle power when confronting Banner."

"Very well. Come along then, Young Lady Jamie."

Jamie nodded, and collected her book and her hoverboard before following Thor out of the main room.

* * *

Steve was fuming as he made his way back to the lab. He was raving mad. He hated to admit it, but Tony and Bruce had been right. Fury and the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. had been hiding something.

How did he know?

The ancient Hydra weapon he was currently carrying.

He had found a storage area on the Helicarrier during his quest of poking around. It hadn't been easy for him to slip away unnoticed from the other agents that had been wandering around the halls at the time, especially since he stood out like a sore thumb from everyone in his red, white, and blue uniform, but he managed to find a deserted corridor, which so happened to be the entryway to the storage area.

He'd sifted around in a number of crates in there for a long time, but had been shocked when he discovered that almost every single one he opened up contained various types of weapons, all of which seemed to be powered by the Tesseract. Some were like the old Hydra weapons he and Jamie had seen back in World War II when they were battling against their old adversary, the Red Skull. Others were of more modern design, looking like they were both a mix of a machine gun and a grenade launcher.

He was hell bent on doing the following two things:

Find Tony and Bruce and show them what he had found.

Find Fury and demand to know what the fuck S.H.I.E.L.D. was doing by building weapons of mass destruction.

As he turned the corner that led to the corridor where the lab was, he saw Fury enter the lab. That made his job easier. He didn't have to go to two different places. He overheard Fury speak as he approached the door.

"What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" he heard Fury say, sounding more than a bit exasperated.

"Uh, kind of been wondering the same thing about you."

"You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

"We are," he heard Bruce say. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for the signature now. When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."

"Yeah," muttered Tony, "then you get your Cube back. No muss, no fuss…"

None of them noticed when he entered, as a beep from one of the computer screens had diverted their attention. Tony looked at it and frowned.

"What is 'Phase Two?'"

Steve slammed the Hydra weapon he found on one of the counters, and the rattling of metal upon metal echoed throughout the small room. All three men turned around, startled.

"Phase Two is S.H.I.E.L.D. uses the Cube to make weapons," he growled angrily. "Sorry," he added to Tony. "Computer was moving a little slow for me."

"Rogers," said Fury, stepping forward and ignoring Tony as he began pressing buttons on the computer screen. "We gathered everything related to the Tesseract. This does not mean that we're making—"

"I'm sorry, Nick," Tony interrupted, flipping the screen around. There was a blueprint of a rather powerful, but still complicated looking missile on the screen. "What were you lying?"

Fury was silent.

Steve just shook his head in disgust. "Jamie and I were wrong, Director," he spat. "The world hasn't changed a bit."

"What are you talking about, Steve?"

Everyone turned. Jamie, Thor, and Natasha had just entered the lab. Jamie was looking curiously up at Steve, but Steve just shook his head at her. He couldn't deal with his young protégé's curious nature right now. He hadn't forgotten what Tony and Bruce had told him earlier. He knew he'd have to pull her aside later and ask her about it, but right now, he needed to stay focused on being angry with Fury.

"Not now, Jamie."

"But Steve, what's going on?"

"Fury's been lying to all of us. Look."

He pointed at the computer screen. Both Jamie and Thor's eyes widened when they saw the blueprints, but Natasha seemed to be indifferent.

Bruce took note of her lack of reaction.

"Did you know about this?" he asked.

Natasha was unfazed. "You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?"

Bruce chuckled darkly. "I was in Calcutta. I was pretty well removed."

"Loki is manipulating you," she insisted.

"And you've been doing what, exactly?"

"You didn't come here because I bat my eyelashes at you."

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy."

He rounded on Fury, and used his reading glasses to point sharply at the blueprints on the computer screen.

"I'd like to know why S.H.I.E.L.D. is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction!"

Fury did not reply for a moment, but then pointed directly at Thor without turning away from Bruce.

"Because of him."

Thor was not the only person in the room to blink at that response.

"Me?"

"Last year," Fury began, "Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously, outgunned."

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor protested.

"But you're not the only people out there, are you?" he contradicted. "And you're not the only threat. The world's filling up with people who can't be matched, especially if we already have to be worrying about the next generation of threats."

"Just what is that supposed to mean?" Bruce demanded.

Fury just wordlessly jerked his head in Jamie's direction.

Every head in the room quickly turned to look at her. She squealed, and quickly put her book and her hoverboard on a nearby counter so she could free her hands and wave them both hastily in front of her in response.

"I-I-I haven't done anything wrong!" she squeaked.

Steve quickly crossed the room and moved protectively in front of her.

"You people try to touch her and you'll answer to me personally!"

"Rogers, I'm not saying that Harper herself might turn against us. I was just using her as an example. She's ten-years-old and already involved in all of this. There are already countries out there that are teaching kids to fight in wars because they don't want to get their own hands dirty. Imagine what would happen if the big global threats started training their own sidekicks to fight against us? We need to have some type of control."

"Like you controlled the Cube?" he retorted.

"Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies," Thor growled. "It is a signal to all the realms that the Earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"A h-higher form?" Jamie repeated nervously.

Everyone ignored her.

"You forced our hand," said Fury. "We had to come up with something."

"A nuclear deterrent," Tony muttered. "Because that always calms everything right down."

"Remind me again how you made your fortune, Stark?"

Steve chimed in at this. "I'm sure if he still made weapons, Stark would be neck-deep—"

"Wait, wait. Hold on. How is this now about me?"

"I'm sorry, isn't everything?" Steve asked mockingly.

Jamie clenched her fists. She didn't want Steve and Tony to fight. Steve was her mentor, and she always stuck by him, but Tony had been nice to her and made her a neat hoverboard. She didn't like seeing them argue.

"I thought humans were more evolved than this," muttered Thor.

"Excuse me!" Fury defended. "Did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?"

"You treat your champions with such mistrust!"

"Are you boys really that naïve?" said Natasha, speaking up for the first time in a long while. "S.H.I.E.L.D. monitors potential threats."

"Captain America and Liberty's Belle's on threat watch?" asked Bruce skeptically.

"We all are!"

"Wait!" said Tony, turning to Natasha. "You're on that list? Are you above or below angry bees?"

Steve fumed. "Stark, so help me God, if you make one more wisecrack—"

"Threat!" Stark shot back. "Verbal threat! I feel threatened!"

"Show some respect!"

"Respect what?"

At this point, the only person in the room not fully invested in the argument was Jamie. She'd backed herself into the corner. All the adults in the room had seemingly forgotten that she was still there.

She wanted to say something. She really did. But she didn't really know what to say.

"You speak of control, yet you court chaos," said Thor sinisterly.

"That's his M.O., isn't it?" spat Bruce. "I mean, what are we, a team? No, we're a chemical mixture that makes chaos. We're… We're a time bomb."

Fury cautiously stepped up toward him.

"You need to step away," he told him slowly.

Tony snickered. "Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?"

Steve rounded on him.

"You know damn well why. Back off!"

Jamie jumped up at hearing the swear.

"Steve, swear word!"

"Stay out of this, Jamie!"

"But Steve—"

"J.J.," he said warningly, but keeping his eyes firmly focused on Tony. "Stay out of this!"

Jamie glared at him.

"We're not in a fight right now so don't order me around!" she snapped harshly. "I don't want you to argue with Tony, but what I care about more is you swearing! If you want to argue with him, then at least don't swear!"

"Jamie, stay out of this!"

"No! Promise not to swear!"

" _Jamie, I said 'enough!'"_

Jamie flinched back at hearing him shout. A hurt look spread across her face.

Everyone stared at Steve. He really shouldn't have yelled at her.

Steve immediately looked apologetic upon seeing her wounded expression.

"Jamie, I—"

But Jamie didn't wait to listen to his apology. She ignored the fact that her hoverboard and book were still on top of one of the countertops, and simply marched out of the room without another word.

Tony chuckled darkly. "Wow… I told you before that I think the kid might have problems, but instead of talking to her, you yell at her… Great parenting skills. Reminds me of my old man…"

Steve threw Tony a dirty look. "You know, Stark, some things are not any of your business! My relationship with Jamie is certainly one of them!"

"Did you not hear what Banner and I told you a couple hours ago? I think something bad happened to her in the past."

"Oh, yes, right! Because she supposedly told you about horrible nightmares she's been hiding from me by tying a gag in her mouth! Like I'm supposed to believe anything you have to say!"

"Actually, Rogers, Stark might be right about her," said Natasha said suddenly. "I saw her a little while ago. She wanted to ask me about something. I'm not sure what, but she seemed upset about it. We were interrupted by Agent Coulson just as she was about to ask me whatever it was, and even though I told her to go ahead and ask it, she seemed to lose her courage and said it was no big deal. But I'm pretty sure she was lying…"

"Do you think it could have been about electricity?" said Thor curiously. "She told me just before we both came in here that's she's all but terrified of me because I harness the powers of lightning…"

Steve stared incredulously at everyone.

"Are you all saying that she's been talking to all of you but not me about her problems?"

"Maybe she's been trying to, Cap," said Tony with a shrug. "Maybe you just don't listen…"

Steve glared at him hatefully, and then began circling him. "Oh, yeah. The big man in a suit of armor. Take that off, what are you?"

"Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," he self-proclaimed.

Natasha shrugged. He was technically right.

His response just seemed to infuriate Steve even more.

"I know guys with none of that worth ten of you," he argued. "I've seen the footage. The only person you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you."

"I think I would just cut the wire," said Tony at once.

Steve just shook his head in disgust. "Always a way out. You know, you may not be a threat, but you better stop pretending to be a hero."

"A hero? Like you?" Tony whispered threateningly. "You're a laboratory experiment, Rogers. Everything special about you came out of a bottle."

"Insult me if you want, but don't insult the experiment itself. When you do that, you insult my sidekick."

"Fine, I'll include her in the mix. Maybe if it weren't for that, she wouldn't possibly be messed up in the fucking head!"

Everyone in the room, including Tony himself, knew that he went to far with that jive, because a very angry look spread slowly across Steve's face, and his eyes narrowed into thin slits.

No one insulted Jamie in front of him and got away with it.

"Put on the suit," he commanded through gritted teeth. "Let's go a few rounds."

Thor couldn't stop himself from laughing.

"You people are so petty. And tiny."

"Yeah, this is a team," said Bruce, agreeing with his sentiments.

"Agent Romanoff," said Fury rather quickly. "Would you escort Doctor Banner to his—"

"Where?" Bruce demanded. "You rented my room."

"The cell was just in case—"

"—in case you needed to kill me," Bruce finished. "But you can't. I know, I tried."

Everyone in the room stared. They hadn't expected to hear that from him.

"I got low," he explained. "I didn't see an end. So, I put a bullet in my mouth, and the other guy spit it out. So I moved on. I focused on helping other people. I was good. Until you dragged me back into this freak show and put everyone here at risk."

As he turned to look directly at Natasha, he didn't even realize that he had reached behind him, and picked up Loki's scepter. Everyone tensed, but he didn't even notice.

"You want to know my secret, Agent Romanoff?" he snapped. "You want to know how I stay calm?"

Natasha didn't answer him.

Fury casually moved his hand towards his holster.

Steve stepped forward.

"Doctor Banner, put down the scepter," he said calmly.

Bruce suddenly glanced down at the scepter. His eyes went wide upon realizing that he was holding it. He quickly set it down.

Everyone stared, wanting to say something, but at that moment, one of the computers started beeping sporadically. Everyone turned as Bruce went to check on it.

"That's not the alarm we set up for the Tesseract," he said at once before everyone could start asking about it. "It's… I don't know what this is… It's not my doing, but either way, you guys don't get to see my party trick after all."

"What's going on?" Natasha demanded and Tony moved beside Bruce to see the computer screen.

Tony frowned as he read the details. "Looks like someone decided to go and pay Mr. Happy-Go-Lucky an unexpected visit."

"Someone is with Loki?" Thor asked.

"Pull up the video feed," Fury ordered. "I want to know who's down there."

Bruce quickly pulled the video screen before Tony could make a smartass comment.

Everyone quickly gasped when they looked at the screen.

Jamie was standing in front of Loki's glass prison box.

* * *

In truth, Jamie had not left the lab with the sole intent of going to find Loki. At first, she had just wanted to get as far away from Steve as she possibly could, and had just been wandering helplessly through the halls.

She was upset, and rightfully so. Because at the end of the day, Steve didn't really care about her. She knew that now for a fact. He didn't care about her.

He wasn't the one to rescue her when she got kidnapped.

He'd never asked her what had happened to her when she was kidnapped.

He always ordered her around.

He occasionally yelled at her for no good reason.

He'd forgotten about her birthday.

He. Did. Not. Care. About. Her.

She wiped away a few tears from her eyes. It wasn't everyday that a kid realizes that they were so unwanted when all they wanted was the acknowledgement from someone they cared for, even if that person did not care about them.

She'd wandered down the halls for a short time, until she found herself back in front of her and Steve's room. She had deliberated going inside and crying for a while, but then she remembered Coulson's directions to Natasha on how to get to Loki's cell: straight down the hall and turn down the third right corner. It would be the second door on the left.

She wasn't stupid. She knew she shouldn't have even been considering going and seeing him, but she had been upset, and angry and not thinking straight. Not to mention still confused. She still had her question she wanted to ask about the rules to how prisoners of war are supposed to be treated, but when she tried to ask Tony about it, the only person who was a good guy on this ship who had actually been a prisoner of war, she had been given an ultimatum as a way of getting her answer. Loki might be the bad guy on this ship, but he was currently a prisoner of war right now, and he was still the one person she'd met so far that had actually talked to her without getting a strange look on his face when she said things. He might be the only person who could give her an answer about this if Tony wouldn't.

Without a second thought because she knew she'd talk herself out of going if she gave her plan too much thought, she set off back down the hall to find Loki's cell. It wasn't all that hard to find once she followed the directions she remembered Coulson saying. The room that the circular glass prison was in was a very large, very round room. It's overhead fluorescent lights gave the room a very eerie look, especially since the floors and many short flights of stairs were metal grated and painted jet black. The place had a spooky feel, but Jamie would not be deterred. She had to speak with Loki.

Jamie had peeked inside the room before entering. She didn't know if any S.H.I.E.L.D. officials had been down there, and she did not want to get caught going to see the Norse God of Mischief. Thankfully, it seemed as though the only person in the room was Loki himself, and he was simply lounging about on the bench inside the glass box. She let out a deep breath of relief at that, and then began descending down the iron-wrought steps silently. He looked up when he saw her enter.

Loki was actually surprised to see Jamie. Although he'd had a laugh messing with her head the previous evening, he had not anticipated that she'd come to see him in his cell. Natasha coming to see him was one thing. Now that he stopped and thought about it, although she'd managed to trick him, the God of Trickery and Deception, he'd expected S.H.I.E.L.D. would send someone to interrogate him. Jamie however was obviously not here for that. She was just a child. S.H.I.E.L.D. would not send a child to get more information from him on his master plan. No, she was here for some other reason. What it was, he didn't know, but he'd still mess around some more with her mind regardless of her reasoning for her visit.

"Well, well," he said, pretending to be amused to see the girl as she came to a halt in front of the glass that separated him from her. "To what do I owe this pleasure, Miss Liberty Belle?"

Jamie flinched a bit upon hearing him call her 'miss.' Her reaction was not lost on Loki.

"What's the matter? Are you afraid of me?"

"Do not call me 'miss!'" she said, her voice surprisingly strong. "And it doesn't matter if I'm afraid of you or not! I'm here because we have a conversation to finish!"

* * *

"Does someone mind telling me how my sidekick knew where Loki's cell on this ship even was?!"

"Coulson told me where it was a while ago when she was with me. He said Fury here wanted me to go interrogate him."

"He gave you directions to the cell right in front of her?!"

"Rogers, neither of us thought she'd go and visit him. Did you think she'd do something like this?"

Steve sighed and ran a hand over his face. He was enraged. What the hell did Jamie think she was doing? He knew she was mad when she left the lab because he yelled at her, but she shouldn't be anywhere near Loki's cell. There was no room for discussion on the matter.

"Someone in this room had better tell me how I get to that cell in the next three seconds…"

"Wait a minute, Cap," said Tony. "This is actually a great opportunity."

"Opportunity?! Stark, I am so not in the mood right now for—"

"Think about it, Cap. You said yourself that you wished she were talking to you instead of the rest of us about what's going on in her head. This is your chance to see for yourself what we're all saying about her possibly having problems is true. I doubt she even remembers that there are cameras in there right now. Stay here for a minute or two and watch. She might say something to him about what's she thinking."

Steve frowned. He wasn't entirely sure if he was comfortable with this. Loki was dangerous. Jamie should not be anywhere near him right now. But still, Tony brought up a good point. Maybe she would tell Loki something. He didn't want to believe that Jamie was hiding things from him, but this might be his one chance to find out what's going on with her.

With a sigh, he turned back to the computer screen.

"Five minutes…" he muttered to everyone in the room. "She gets five minutes alone with him, but then somebody had better tell me which way that cell is…"

* * *

"Our conversation back on the mountain?"

"Yes, we're continuing it! I have something I want you to tell me!"

"You know, I'm surprised that your precious Captain has let you out of his sight long enough for you to be down here talking with me."

"Captain America doesn't know I'm down here and he's never going to know. Even if you tell him anything I tell you later, he's just going to assume you're lying. You're currently the only person on board this ship who's probably going to answer my question, so you're going to tell me what I need to know! It doesn't matter if they're lies or not, I just want answers!"

Loki smirked. This girl was amusing him more and more every second with her strange behavior, especially since she was completely unaware of the fact that there was a camera in this room. He might as well have some more fun with screwing with her head until someone came and dragged her away from him. And besides, the next step of his master plan would be happening soon enough. Why not savor this last half-an-hour on the Helicarrier by screwing with her mind? It would certainly make things easier if the girl was a mess when part two of his schemes went into effect.

"What makes you think I'll tell you anything you want to know?"

"You're already talking to me, so that says something. Now, I don't care if you're a God or not, but you're going to sit in that cell regardless of me being here, so you might as well talk to me!"

"And what will you do for me if I do agree to answer whatever question you might have? And why are you asking me at all? I'd think you'd know that I could very well be lying to you."

"I'm not letting you out of that cell, if that's what you're hoping," Jamie growled. "I don't intend to do anything for you, so wipe that idea from you're mind! And my reasoning's for coming to see you our mine and mine alone! But I have a question that I need an answer to, and the one person on this ship I was counting upon to answer it isn't going to give a straight answer about it. That just leaves you. Again, I don't care whether or not you lie about your answer, but just give me _a_ answer!"

Loki's smirk only grew.

"Very well," he replied. "I'll answer whatever question you have, but only if afterwards you answer a question of my own."

"I'm not telling you anything about S.H.I.E.L.D.'s plans!"

"My question has nothing to do with your organization of S.H.I.E.L.D. at all, or even about any of your friends. It's a personal question about you."

"Fine. Deal."

"Ask away then."

Jamie took a deep breath. This was it. Finally, someone would tell her what she wanted to know about the rules of how prisoners of war were supposed to be treated. She was excited, but also nervous. She looked Loki firmly in the eye, and then blurted her question right out.

"What are the rules that have to be followed when you're a prisoner of war?"

The smirk on Loki's face fell as a puzzled look spread across it instead.

"Would you repeat that, please?"

"What are the rules that have to be followed when you're a prisoner of war?"

Loki blinked. Of all the questions that he'd been expecting the little girl to ask him, this was not among them. He couldn't even lie in order to mess with her mind like he'd originally planned. Not when he didn't have a single idea of what she was even talking about.

"I do not understand you're question," he said after a moment.

Jamie snarled furiously and stomped her foot.

"Do not lie to me!" she barked. "You are a prisoner of war yourself right now, so that means you are already aware of the rules we're supposed to be using to still treat you humanely, even though you technically don't even deserve it considering you've killed over eighty people in the past two days! So, tell me what those rules are! Is S.H.I.E.L.D. even following them with you or not?!"

Loki pressed his lips together. In all fairness, he still didn't understand what the child was talking about.

"You are still not making any sense," he said. "I cannot answer your question even to lie to you, because I do not understand it."

Jamie stared at him for a long time, and then screamed and stomped her foot again before marching around in the space outside of the glass cell.

"Why can't anyone answer this for me?! Why?!" she all but snapped to the air.

Loki couldn't hold back a chuckle at seeing her reaction to a lack of a response.

"I would tell you that I am sorry that I can be of no assistance to you, but that would be a lie," he said in a sickeningly sweet voice. "But in any case, we had a deal. Now, it is your turn to answer something for me."

Jamie turned to him, glaring at him in frustration. "Fine. Go ahead."

Loki grinned maliciously. "Why are you so afraid of my brother?"

Jamie blinked.

"Of all the questions you want to ask, that's what you're curious about?" she asked. "Not the reason why I wanted you to tell me about the rules about prisoners of war?"

"It interests me a great deal that you are more afraid of someone who is on your side to battle against me than you are of me, the so-called villain," he deflected. "That is my question for you. You agreed in advance to answer it. So, tell me. Why are you so afraid of my brother?"

Jamie shrugged. In her mind, there was no harm in telling Loki the truth about what happened to her when she was kidnapped. Even if he ever did tell Steve, or indeed anyone else the truth about her captivity should he somehow manage to break free of his glass cage, no one would believe him. He was the villain. They'd just assume he was lying.

"It's because of his powers of thunder and lightning."

"His powers?"

"I was once kidnapped," she told Loki. "I was once kidnapped by a platoon of soldiers called Hydra. They took me back to their base because they wanted to know everything I knew about the American Army's attack plans. They didn't believe me when I told them I knew nothing. So, they chained me up to an electric chair. They zapped me repeatedly for over a day and a half. It was horrible."

* * *

Everyone in the lab stared at the Jamie on the computer screen in stunned silence. No one could believe what she'd just admitted to Loki. She'd once been tortured by electrocution by Hydra?

Heads slowly turned towards Steve. Everyone wanted to know if he had known about this, but it was clear by the expression on Steve's face that he was just as shocked as the rest of them. He had eyes only on the little girl on the computer screen. His face was as white as a sheet, and his jaw was slightly agape. He was in shock. How could Jamie have never told him about this? That she'd once been chained to an electric chair and zapped repeatedly over and over?

As that thought entered his mind, he suddenly became very, very angry. She should not have hidden this from him. She should have told him about this right after her kidnapping in '45. Or, if not him, then at least Peggy. Or Howard. Or Colonel Phillips. Even one of the Howling Commandos. And if she hadn't told him or anyone else about this, what else had she hidden from him? What the fuck had happened to her during her captivity?

"Someone…" he said slowly, his voice no louder than a deadly whisper. "Someone in this room had better tell me where that cell is…"

No one in the room answered him. They all believed they'd seen Steve angry when he was arguing with Tony a minute ago. That anger had been a candle compared to this. That had been him being annoyed. This was a pure, unadulterated storm of rage.

" _Now!"_ he screamed.

"Go down this hall and take the second left. Take a left again, and the door will be the second on your right," said Natasha quickly.

Steve all but flew out of the lab, and no one dared to try and stop him. His thoughts were a haze of rage. He was a storm of emotions. He was shocked, sad, and angry all at the same time, but one thought rang clear in his mind through the endless cycle of rapidly changing emotions as he half-stomped, half-ran to Loki's cell: He was going to find Jamie, bring her back to the lab, and make her tell him exactly what had happened to her when Hydra took her.

She just told Loki she'd been repeatedly electrocuted.

She'd admitted Thor that electricity scared her.

Tony and Bruce told him she was hiding her nightmares from him.

She had something she had chickened out from asking Natasha.

What else had his little protégé hidden from him?

It didn't take him long to find the room. He slammed the door open, and Jamie all but leapt away from Loki's cell upon seeing him enter. Loki looked amused to see him there, but Steve didn't even spare the Norse God a glance at all. He stormed inside and hurried down the metal grated stairs toward his sidekick.

"Captain!" said Jamie, her eyes wide upon seeing the furious scowl on his face. She misunderstood the situation, still not realizing that he'd seen and heard everything on the cameras. She thought he was just mad that she was in here with Loki at all. "Captain, I'm sor—"

Steve didn't even let her finish. He simply snatched one of her wrists that were covered in her red gloves of her uniform, and began dragging her behind him as he made his way out of the room, not even sparing her any more than a furious look.

Steve did not say a word to Jamie as he dragged her through the halls back to the lab, but she said a lot to him.

"Steve, I'm sorry I went to talk to him! I was just mad! If you want to take me somewhere to yell at me, at least let go of my wrist! You're hurting me!"

Steve said nothing, nor did he loosen his grip on her wrist or even glance behind him at her. He was barely keeping a lid on his temper just so he could get her back to the lab and yell at her there. If he did anything other than focusing on the path back to the lab, he was sure to snap.

When they finally got back to the lab, Steve ignored the bewildered expressions from everyone else upon seeing him dragging Jamie by her wrist inside. He released her, and Jamie automatically began rubbing her sore wrist.

"What were you saying to Loki?" he demanded, his voice leaving no room for argument.

Jamie blinked up at him.

"What?"

"What. Were. You. Saying. To. Loki?"

Jamie stared at him for a moment, but then finally found my voice.

"You're not mad that I was talking to him in general?"

"Oh, I'm furious that you went to see him at all, but that's not what I'm asking you right now. What were you saying to him?"

Jamie had the nerve to look annoyed by his question. She didn't understand what he was so mad about if he wasn't yelling at her for going to see Loki at that exact moment, but she was still upset with him from shouting at her a little bit ago.

"What do you care?!" she snipped, ignoring the expressions from everyone as she crossed the room to pick up her Norse mythology book which she'd left behind earlier when she stormed out. "It's not like it matters at all!"

"It's not like it…? You being chained to an electric chair does not matter at all?!" he thundered.

Jamie whirled around, the book clasped firmly in her hands as she stared at her mentor in unmistakable shock.

"W-what did you…? I-I-I don't know what you're talking about!"

It was a lie. Everyone in the room knew it was a lie.

"There were cameras in that cell block, Jamie! Did you forget that?! _Everyone_ in this room saw and heard everything you said to Loki!"

The book slipped out from Jamie's fingers.

No one in the room dared to say anything. It was not their place to get involved in this, and they all knew it. This was between Steve and Jamie.

For a long time, Jamie just stood there, her face filled with horror as she remained frozen in place. This couldn't be happening. Not now. Steve was never supposed to know about that. She couldn't tell him. She couldn't tell him about those horrible two days. If she did, he'd hate her. He'd hate her for everything that had happened.

She'd been beaten.

She'd been electrocuted.

She'd almost been forced by the Hydra squad leader to take off her Liberty Belle dress.

She'd killed that Hydra squad leader.

She'd killed so many Hydra soldiers.

She'd killed Trent by leaving him behind.

She couldn't handle it.

She couldn't tell him.

She tried to bolt towards the door.

Steve caught her before she'd run less than three steps. She screamed and kicked in desperation to escape from telling her mentor everything as he lifted her easily up by her waist, and carried her toward one of the many counters in the room. Thor and Natasha stepped out of the way as he deposited her on the counter's surface.

Steve's entire face was sweltering red as he glared at his protégé.

"You are not leaving this room until you tell me just what the hell happened to you!"

"Uh, Rogers?" said Bruce rather hesitantly. "I don't think you should—"

"Banner! Shut the _fuck_ up! This has nothing to do with you!"

"S-swear word!" said Jamie nervously.

Steve rounded back to her.

"You do _not_ tell me not to swear right now, Jamie!" he ordered. "I'm going to swear, because you need to understand how angry I am right now! Tell me the truth! What happened when Hydra kidnapped you?!"

Jamie gulped. His words sounded eerily familiar to what Trent had once told her when he was telling her his escape plan to get them both out of that base.

Regardless, she still wasn't going to say anything.

"N-nothing!" she declared, frantically shaking her head back and forth and her eyes wide in fear. "N-nothing happened! I… I was lying to Loki! I was lying!"

"No, you are lying to me! Tell me the truth!"

Jamie just squeezed her eyes tight. She couldn't do this. She couldn't tell him the truth.

"Jamie!"

"No!" she shrieked, still shaking her head wildly. "No! I won't tell you! Especially when they're still here! It's none of their business!"

She pointed sharply at everyone else. Everyone looked a bit startled that she was calling them out, but Steve was completely unfazed. He was too angry to care that he was forcing this conversation from her in front of the others.

"You got them involved when you decided to start talking to everyone else on this ship instead of me about this! Stark and Banner have told me that you told them that you've been _hiding_ the fact you have nightmares almost every night because you sleep with a gag in your mouth! Romanoff says you had something you wanted to ask her, but decided not to at the last minute upon Coulson showing up! Thor mentioned that you're _terrified_ of him because of his powers of lightning, which now I understand is because of the electric chair! Tell me the truth! What happened?!"

Jamie began to cry, and clasped both of her hands over her ears as she continued to shake her head.

"I'm not telling you!" she screamed.

"Jamie, I'm going to give you 'till the count of three!"

"No!"

"One!"

"Shut up!"

"Two!"

"I won't tell you!"

"Two-and-a-half!"

"You'll hate me!"

"Thr—"

" _I killed my brother!"_

Silence.

The only sound to be heard in the room was Jamie's heartfelt sobs as she cried in anguish of being forced to reveal her best kept secret. She wouldn't even look at Steve. She just buried her face in her hands and bawled. Everyone else was completely silent as they stared at her. Steve himself was completely taken aback, his furious gaze changing immediately to pure shock. He had not expected to hear that.

Steve didn't really know what to think upon hearing those words. He didn't even want to believe them. He knew how much Jamie had loved her older brother. This had to be some type of miscommunication she was telling him.

"W-what?" he said after a long moment.

"I… I killed him…" she cried, not even looking at him as she spoke. "I killed Trent the same way I killed Bucky!"

Now Steve was really confused. He had no idea what she was talking about. She hadn't killed Bucky. Bucky died from being blasted out of a train by one of the Hydra guards on the train. She had nothing to do with it. What exactly was going on in her head?

"What are you talking about?" he asked. "You… You didn't kill Bucky."

To his surprise, Jamie actually mad at his words, and promptly shoved his hovering form away from her.

"Yes, I did!" she snapped. "I killed him! I killed him because I sat off to the side in shock about what was happening while you tried to rescue him! And I know you blame me for his death, too! I tried to apologize to you about killing him after he fell from the train, but you yelled at me! You yelled! I know you blame me for that!"

Steve stared at her as he recalled that day. He knew what she was talking about now. He remembered being a complete emotional mess when his lifelong friend fell to his death that day, and that a moment afterward, she tried to tell him something. But he hadn't wanted to hear it. He didn't want to hear her console him about Bucky right then. He'd snapped at her in order to get her to leave him alone right then. But he'd never once _blamed_ her for Bucky's death.

"Jamie," he said slowly, trying to keep his tone level and even. "I… I never—"

"Shut up!" she screamed, fresh tears streaming down her cheeks. "You wanted to hear the truth! So, shut up and listen!"

She sobbed horribly for a moment, but when she looked back up at him, her eyes were both sad and angry at the same time.

"I ran after that guard in the forest… I ran after him, because I thought if I caught him on my own, you'd like me again! I thought you'd be proud of me! I figured one good whack to the back of his head with my torch, and he'd be out like a light! I'd capture him! You'd be _proud_ of me! You wouldn't think I was useless! You'd still consider me to be a good sidekick!

"I was wrong! The guard led me right to his platoon! They outnumbered me! As they were tying me up, Trent suddenly appeared! I don't know what they wanted with him, but they seemed _pleased_ to see him! They kept calling him Test Subject 32557037! I don't know what that meant! I don't! But they captured him, too! Then they knocked me out!

"When I woke up, I was tied up to a chair in a cell in the Hydra base! Trent was in the cell across from mine! And the guards… The guards and the squad leader… They were in my cell! They started _demanding_ that I tell them all about the American Army's attack plans! But I didn't know anything! If I had, I would have told them because I was scared! I was _so_ scared! I told them I didn't know, but they didn't believe me! They started _beating_ me! They hit me over and over again! Trent didn't like that! He _screamed_ at them to stop and banged against the bars to his cell:

"' _For fuck's sake! She's just a child! A little girl!"_ she bellowed out, repeating the words that Trent had screamed. _"There are rules to how you treat prisoners of war! Follow those rules, Goddammit!'"_

Everyone exchanged bewildered looks. That explained why she got it into her head that there were rules that had to be followed when people had prisoners of war. Because technically there are rules. People aren't supposed to hit prisoners like that.

Steve was just staring at her in shock. He couldn't believe what he was hearing. He opened his mouth to say something — anything — but Jamie didn't even notice. She hopped off the counter, and began pacing round and round the room. Her eyes wild and her hands moving about in every direction possible in order to emphasize what she was saying. It was clear she didn't even remember where she was. She was simply lost in the memory, as she was now just talking to the air, and not just at Steve.

"The guards… The guards didn't like that… Especially the leader! He told the other guards to shut him up… They… They went into cell and started hitting him, too! They hit him! They hit him and hit him and hit him! I begged! I _begged_ them to stop, but they wouldn't! The leader just kept demanding I tell him what I knew about the attack plans, but I kept telling him I didn't know! He… He didn't believe me… He… He said: 'Let's see how you do with more… with more _jolting_ types of persuasion…'

"He… clicked some buttons on the wall of the cell… And… And the chair turned electric! It volted out electricity and shocked me! He wouldn't turn it off! He just watched as I screamed! It… It hurt so much…

"They did this over and over again all day! They'd hit me, ask me about what I knew about the attack plans, and when I told them I didn't know anything, they'd either hit me or shock me! Over and over and over again! If Trent got too loud from his screaming and banging the cell bars, they'd hit him, too! They'd hit him!

"When they finally left for the night, I… I couldn't stop crying! I was so scared and my whole body hurt so, _so_ much! But… But Trent… He had a plan! He told me that one of the bars in his cell was loose! He just had to work on jarring it! If he did that by the next morning, we just had to wait for the guard change the next night! He'd… He'd be able to slip out of his cell during the guard change and knock 'em out! He'd take the keys to my cell and chains and his guns, and we'd run!

"He did it… He got the bar loose! We just… We just had to survive one more day! Just _one_ more! The guards did the same thing that they did the day before. They beat us both and kept electrocuting me and kept demanding I tell them what I knew:

"' _You, Miss Liberty Belle, are Captain America's sidekick! You must know something!'_

"I _hated_ it when they called me 'miss.' I hated it! But I just kept screaming that I don't know! _'But I don't! I really don't!'_

"By the time they left that night, I… I was hurting again, but Trent was ready to put his plan into action. We just… We just had to wait for it to get darker… Just a little bit darker, and the guard change… But… But things went wrong… Really, _really_ wrong…"

As she gulped thickly and prepared herself for telling the horrible things that happened next, everyone in the room exchanged looks. What the hell could have happened to make things possibly worse?

"The… The guard leader came back to the cellblock. I think he was angry that I wasn't telling him the attack plans even though I kept insisting that I didn't know anything… He demanded that I tell him the truth… Trent yelled that I was being honest, but he just ignored him. I told him… I told him again that I really didn't know… I remember… I remember being so scared that he was going to start a late night torture session… If… If he did that… If he did that, Trent and I would miss the guard change and have to postpone our plan… But… But the guard didn't…

She started shaking from head-to-toe in fear, her eyes wide as she remembered what happened next. No one in the lab dared to speak. She had to get this out of her. She did not dare to look at anyone. She didn't want to see their expressions. Her eyes were just firmly fixed on the floor. She took a deep breath, and started stuttering out her next words.

"T-the… The g-guard… He… He t-took out his gun… _'I'm g-going to remove your c-chains,'_ he s-said… _'I-if… If you t-try anything — anything a-at all — a bullet… a b-bullet goes straight through your s-skull… I-I-I will not hesitate… D-do you understand m-me?'_ I-I-I…"

"Jamie, it's okay!" said Steve abruptly. He could tell that she was going into shock just from remembering this. He had to get her to calm down. They could talk about this more later, when she was calm. "I… I understand! You can—"

But Jamie hadn't seemed to hear his words. She just kept going.

"I… I nodded. I was so scared…" she whimpered. "H-he… he kept the gun p-pointed at me as he unlocked my chains. T-then… he… Then he t-told me to get up from the chair… And… And he…"

For a long time, she did not speak. She started breathing sporadically as her tears grew thicker.

Then she screamed it right out.

" _He told me to take my dress off!"_

Every jaw in the room dropped upon hearing that. No one could believe what she'd just said. The Hydra guard wanted to do _that_ to her? She was ten-years-old! Just a kid!

Steve's face completely drained of all color upon hearing what his protégé just said. He was completely shocked. Within two seconds, he crossed the space of the room, bent down on one knee, and gently but firmly grabbed her by the shoulders so he could look her in the eye.

"W-what…? What did you just say?!" he asked, not wanting to actually believe what she'd told him.

But Jamie just forced herself out of his grip. She didn't want him to touching her at all right now. She started sobbing loudly and shaking her head back and forth frantically as she grabbed her head, clutching at her hair. She was completely hysterical.

"I-I-I don't know what he wanted to do! Honest to G-God I don't! I don't! I-I-I don't, but Trent… He… He must've, because all the sudden he went ballistic!

"' _What the fuck did you just suggest to my little sister?!'_

"The next thing I know, he burst out from the hidden opening of his cell and started wailing on the guard! The guard's gun… It went flying! But Trent didn't care! He just kept hitting him over—"

She banged her fist up against the wall to emphasize the hits.

"And over—"

Bang.

"And over—"

Bang.

"And over again! He screamed at the guard as he beat down on his face: _'How dare you! How dare you! She's my sister! She's ten-years-old! How fucking dare you! How dare you even think of her that way! There are rules, Goddammit! Rules to how you treat prisoners of war! There are rules! You fucker!'_

Everyone exchanged more looks of shock. Her want to know about the rules of prisoners of war was only accentuated by hearing that. Judging by what she said that her brother had been screaming and when used in that context, the boy had been right. That was a major rule that shouldn't be broken. He must've put up a hell of a fight for this little girl.

"I… I was actually _afraid_ of my brother right then…" she whispered, her entire body trembling. "I… I'd _never_ seen him like that before… _Never…_ But the guard… S-somehow… Somehow he managed to push Trent off him, and he started beating him! Hard! He… He wouldn't stop! I… I saw the gun he dropped… I saw it… And I saw how much pain Trent was in… And… And I grabbed it and… _And I shot him in the head!_

More anguished sobs erupted from the little girl as everyone continued to listen to her story. No one had any idea what to say to that.

"I broke my motto!" she wept. "I… I promised myself that I would never kill! I made that my motto! And I broke it!

"Trent… he didn't give me time to snap out of the shock… He just… He just took the other gun from the guard and his pocket watch that had been stolen from him. He threw it on over my neck and told me that we had to go! The guards would've heard the gunshot! We had to go!

"I… I think I shut down at that point, because I don't remember much of what happened during our escape… We just ran… We ran and if anyone got close to us, we shot them. We didn't even think twice about it… When… When we finally got outside, I remember being _so_ happy because I could see the main gate… I… I forgot Trent wasn't like me! I forgot he wasn't like _you,_ Steve! He wasn't genetically enhanced! He couldn't keep up with me! I was going too fast! I didn't even stop when I realized that he was lagging behind! I just… I just ran…

"I only snapped out of it when I reached the main gate. I… I heard a gunshot and Trent screaming in pain… I stopped and looked back. He… He was on the ground, and clutching his leg… I wanted to go back for him! I did! He was my brother! My big brother! My _only_ big brother! I wanted to go back and help him… But… But I couldn't move…

"Trent… he saw me standing there. He started screaming to me!

"' _Run, Jamie! Run! Don't stop! Run! Run!'_

"I told myself not to! I told myself to go back! I… I had to help him! Trent was my big brother! I had to go back! I _had_ to…! But my feet wouldn't listen! I turned on heel and… _and I left him there!_ I ran and left him! I ran away and _left_ him…!

"As… As I ran… I heard _another_ gunshot, and… And I knew… I knew he was gone… But I didn't look back… I just ran away…!"

She started bursting into the loudest sobs yet upon telling that last bit, and buried her face in her hands. She couldn't bear to look at anyone after telling them all her deepest, darkest secret.

"I killed him…" she whispered. "I _killed_ my big brother…"

Within the exception of her heartfelt sobs, the room was deathly quiet upon hearing the end of her tale. Everyone was shocked beyond belief. No wonder the girl was so messed up. What she'd gone through was nothing less that horrifying.

With a dry mouth, Steve attempted to speak, and reached out to touch Jamie's shoulder. Somehow, he had to make Jamie understand that what had happened was not her fault. Judging by what she'd said, it had just been a bad situation. A situation that had been beyond her control but that she was blaming herself for. Nothing that had happened that day had been her fault at all. Especially not Trent's death.

"J-Jamie—" he began.

But Jamie suddenly grew extremely mad. She ripped his hand away from her shoulder and scowled spitefully up at him.

"Do you want to know what hurts the most about all of this?!" she snarled. "It's the fact that you don't even care about me!"

"I don't even—?! What in the _world_ gave you—?"

" _Don't lie to me!"_ she screamed, hot tears of rage gathering in her eyes as she continued to glare hatefully up at him. "I _know_ you don't! Reason number one" — she held up one finger on her right hand to tick off the point — "you didn't _care_ enough rescue me from that base! _I_ had to get myself out of there! If you and rest of the army came to rescue, Trent might have lived! Reason number two" — she held up a second finger — "you didn't _care_ to ask me about _any_ of this until now, and you _force_ me to tell you about it in front of all of them!"

She pointed sharply at Thor, Natasha, Bruce, Tony, and Fury, who again all looked startled that she was referring to them right now. Jamie didn't even notice. She just ticked off her third finger and went on.

"Reason number three, you are _always_ ordering me around even when not out in the battlefield! 'Jamie, go over here! Jamie, stay out of this! Jamie, do that!' Reason number four" — she held up her fourth finger — 'you _yell_ at me! I never would have even gone to talk to Loki if you hadn't yelled at me! _And_ you were yelling at me so I'd tell you about all this even though I didn't want to! But reason number five… It's the most _important_ reason…!"

She was seething as she looked up at him and held up all five fingers on her right hand. She glowered at him and screamed.

" _Reason number five is that you forgot about my birthday!"_

Every head in the room turned to look at Steve, but he was completely shocked. He just stared at her with wide eyes as he processed that last bit of information.

"You're… you're birthday…?"

"I told you on _two_ different occasions!" she screamed, more tears running down her face. "I _told_ you! My birthday is in April! I skipped it! I skipped it because of the dates of our unfreezing! Why do you think I insisted that you look at my personal file a few days ago?! It was because I wanted you to see for yourself that you forgot it! But you didn't _care_ enough to read it thoroughly!"

More tears ran down her cheeks, but she didn't start sobbing this time. She just kept shouting at him.

"I'm going to be ten-years-old for another year! But you don't even _care!_ Well, guess what, Steve?! If _you_ don't care about me, then _I_ don't care about you! _I hate you!"_

And before anyone could stop her, she ran to the counter where she left her hoverboard, grabbed it and jumped onto it, and zoomed as fast as she could out the door, her sobs echoing along behind her down the hall.

For a long time, no one dared to say anything after she stormed out. No one could believe what they'd heard her said. That little girl had gone through something truly horrifying and traumatic, and although she was one hundred percent wrong about thinking that Steve didn't care about her, because everyone in the room knew for a fact that Steve truly did, they could see and understand her reasoning for thinking otherwise. Especially about her birthday.

Heads turned to look at him again, but Steve did not meet their eyes. He was heartbroken. Not just because of what Jamie had said about hating him. He was an adult and quite capable of realizing that that was just something she said in the heat of the moment from being so angry. No, he was heartbroken about the fact that she had gone through all of that back when Hydra kidnapped her. How could they have done that to her? She was just a little girl…

With a sigh, he leaned down on one of the counters, and breathed deeply. He was an emotional mess.

"Goddammit…" he whispered. For a long moment, it seemed as though he was going to stay calm, but then his face contorted into a scowl, and he slammed his fist down on the counter. _"Goddammit!"_

Everyone stared, not sure at first of whether he was mad or just plain upset. Then they saw him just shake his head sadly and run his fingers through his as he tried to calm down, and they realized that he was just upset.

"How…?" he whispered, not talking to any of the others, but rather to himself. "How could this have happened…? How could they do that to her…?"

"Rogers," said Natasha slowly. "I think… I think you should go after her. Try… Try _talking_ to her…"

" _Talking_ to her?!" he repeated incredulously, his eyes wide with disbelief upon hearing what she'd said. "Romanoff, Jamie just admitted to me many _horrible_ things. She is… She is under the _impression_ that not only did she kill my lifelong friend — which had _nothing_ to do with her, I might add — she also thinks that she apparently was responsible for the death of her older brother that she _loved!_ She was beaten, electrocuted, was forced to kill… Fuck! If it hadn't been for her brother, she also would have been _raped!_ What the _hell_ am I supposed to say to that?! I don't… I don't even know what to think!"

"At least… at least convince her that she was wrong about the fact that you don't care about her," Natasha pressed gently. "Everyone here knows that she was wrong about that. We can all see that you care about her. But she… She doesn't seem to realize that, especially since you apparently forgot about her birthday. That seems to be the main problem."

"It never… it never occurred to me that that would be an issue," he said slowly, turning away from Natasha to stare at the counter top. "I… I didn't forget. I just… I just didn't think she'd think about it. I saw it in her file that it was technically skipped from the dates of our unfreezing, but I didn't… I didn't think it mattered! She technically still is ten-years-old, so… So I didn't think it would matter all that much to her. She technically never did turn eleven, so…."

"Are you really that dumb?" said Tony suddenly, staring at Steve with a raised brow. "I mean, seriously? My old man screwed up a lot when it came to me, but he at least never forgot about my birthdays! It might have just been some expensive present and some money even if he himself wasn't there, but at least it showed he didn't actually forget about them!"

"Believe it or not, Steve, but Stark's right," said Bruce. "Birthday's matter to kids…"

Steve didn't say anything for a very long time. When they all put it that way, he really did feel like a fuck up. What in God's name had possessed him to think that Jamie wouldn't care about her skipped birthday?

"You must go and speak with her," said Thor. "At least do not allow her to be alone right now."

Slowly Steve nodded. They were right. He had to go and talk to her. Comfort her. Apologize, even.

He moved to leave the lab, but at that moment, the computer began beeping again. He stopped and joined everyone else in staring at it hopefully. To their immense joy, this time the computer was beeping because it had actually picked up the signature for the Tesseract.

Jamie's emotional and mental state would have to wait until later. This was technically more important.

"Got it," said Fury as Bruce began hurrying towards the computer.

"You located the Tesseract?" said Thor.

"I could get there fastest," Tony offered.

"The Tesseract belongs on Asgard," Thor objected. "No human is a match for it."

"You're not going alone!" Steve protested, forcing himself to shove all thoughts of his sidekick out of his mind for the moment.

"You're gonna stop me?" Tony demanded.

"Put on the suit, let's find out," Steve challenged.

"I'm not afraid to hit and old man!" Tony shot back. "Especially one that seems to be an even bigger idiotic asshole than me!"

Steve glared at him upon hearing the extra jive.

"Put on the suit!" he growled.

Bruce ignored the arguing. He was staring at the computer screen with wide eyes. According to the computer, the location of the Tesseract was right next to the plane.

That could mean only one thing.

"Oh, my God," he whispered.

He raised his head to try and warn everyone about the fact that the Helicarrier was about to be under attack by Loki's controlled henchmen, but the room suddenly exploded.


	5. Reconciliation

**I am so, so sorry about the late update!**

 **Usually, it only takes me about two or three days to get chapters out, but this time, it took me almost a week! I am so sorry for making all of you wait! But at least the wait was worth it! Over 23,000 words! I've beaten my personal record of a word count on a chapter for any of my stories!  
**

 **However, I do have good reasons. First off, when I started writing this again, I had just finished writing the first half of chapter after a day and a half of posting chapter four, but my Word program went crazy! The entire Avengers story turned into nothing but a series of stars, and would not change back no matter what I tried. I had no choice but to delete the document and rewrite the chapter from scratch. I actually cried when I deleted the document. So much work wasted... I'm just happy that the story is still available online where it can still be read by everyone.**

 **The second reason is that I got accepted to be a chorus member in a local musical, so my priorities have changed. I've been rather busy with rehearsals.**

 **Reason number three is actually going to shock all of you, but the truth of the matter is, I just couldn't bring myself to write. I was a bit burned out by all the writing. Over ten thousand word worth of chapters being carved out day every few days for two different stories this past month... I was exhausted! I need to take some time to rejuvenate and let my creative side recharge. I'm sorry to have made you all wait while this happened, but I needed the few days worth of rest.**

 **Moving on, I want to say that I'm _astounded_ by the number of reviews I received for the last chapter! Seven! Plus an additional one to Chapter One! That's the most reviews I've ever had for a story at one time! I've broken my review record!**

 **Let me thank all those reviewers:**

 **\- ZabuzasGirl**

 **\- fezwearingjellybananas**

 **\- Connie Hooper**

 **\- Guest118 (I hope you log in to FanFiction next time you review so I can acknowledge you properly! :D)**

 **\- TheMarvel-DCHobbiteer**

 **\- BookProf101**

 **\- storiesarebetter**

 **Please everyone, leave reviews in the future like these people did! I love reading reviews! They encourage me to keep making these updates as fast as I can!**

 **Happy Reading!**

* * *

 **Chapter Five: Reconciliation**

Jamie flew wildly down the halls of the Helicarrier on her hoverboard, tears blurring her vision as she struggled to dodge around startled S.H.I.E.L.D. agents as she searched about wildly for any sign of a door that led down to the lower levels of the ship. Ever since her kidnapping incident back in '45, she for some bizarre reason that she did not fully understand found it to be extremely comforting to hide herself in the small dark enclosure underneath her bed and cry. She did not want to go back to her and Steve's shared room and cry underneath her bed in there, though. That would be the first place Steve would look for her. No, she was going to find the way to the darkened lower levels of the ship and cry to herself down there. She wouldn't be disturbed by anyone down there.

She eventually found a door that marked its entrance to the maintenance levels of the ship, and she quickly hopped off her hoverboard and shoved it under her arm before flinging the door open and bolting through it. Many workmen who'd been busy checking the pipes in this level of the tunnels watched in alarm as the little girl that they all knew to be the legendary Liberty Belle run past them all without a second glance with her eyes overflowing with tears. One man attempted to rush forward and stop her so as to ask her if she was okay, but Jamie just shoved him aside and kept on running. She didn't want his sympathy. She wanted to be alone. She wanted to cry in peace and quiet.

She eventually found a somewhat secluded area with a lot of pipes, and she nestled her way in between the piping on the walls of the maintenance hall and brought her knees up to her chest and sobbed with all her heart. She was an emotional wreck. Her mentality at that moment was completely unstable, and she couldn't keep her thoughts focused on one thing for more than a few minutes at a time. She was a whirling bundle of emotions.

The first emotion she was feeling was anger. She was angry with Steve. How dare he force her to admit all of that to him! She knew she always told herself that if he ever did ask her to tell him about what happened when Hydra kidnapped her, she would tell him, but she was angry that he had _forced_ her to tell him, and in front of Natasha, Tony, Bruce, Thor, and Fury, too. He had been so mad with her when he found out that she had been talking to everyone about her problems instead of him. Well, why shouldn't she have been talking to them instead of him? None of them had ever yelled at her like he did, and unlike Steve, they had listened when she told them that she didn't want them to pry further. Why had he forced her tell him about everything like that? In front of all of them?

She was also sad about everything. Being forced to tell Steve everything that had happened to her back when Hydra captured her and Trent had forced the old memories to the surface of her mind, and she couldn't stop crying. It was all so horrible, and she was reliving it now in a way she had not done since the whole ordeal happened with the exception of her more vivid, horrifying nightmares.

The beatings…

The electrical shocks…

The guard's demands…

The killings…

Trent…

Trent… her wonderful big brother. Being forced to relive the worst two days of her life also brought back the memory of the day she had killed him. Looking back at it now, she had been nothing more than a coward. How could she have done that? How could she have just left him behind to die? She knew the guards were surrounding his fallen form and that he had told her to run away and leave him, but it wasn't an excuse. She had had a choice. She chose to run away and leave him there. She should have ignored his words and turned back around to help him, regardless of whether or not those guards would have killed her. She was Liberty Belle, the Wonder Girl of World War II. She was supposed to save people, but instead, she had killed a man by choosing to leave him behind. And not just any man, either. But Trent. Her only big brother.

They could've escaped together. It didn't matter that those guards were starting to close in around him. She should have turned right back around and run to his aid. She was a biologically improved child super-soldier. She knew the gun she had had at the time had by then run out of bullets, but she could have been able to knock a few of them out with her fists before taking the gun Trent had had and shooting the rest of them out. She could've then helped Trent stand from where he'd fallen on the ground, swung his arm around her shoulders to act as a tiny crutch for his wounded leg, and helped him run out the gates. They could've both survived. But she had been scared and made the coward's choice to run away. She was such a terrible person.

As she continued to bawl out more tears, she reached into the pocket of her dress, and took out her brother's old pocket watch, the only item of her brother's she even had anymore after being frozen in ice for almost seventy years. With trembling fingers, she clicked opened the latch and opened it to see the only picture she had of Trent outside of her family photograph back at her and Steve's apartment in New York inside.

Trenton Anthony Harper had been a day short of turning twenty when he died, but this photograph had been taken just after his nineteenth birthday. It was in black and white and a professionally shot photograph of him of the shoulders up. He was a dark-haired young man with thickly matted hair and dark eyes that were filled to the brim with friendliness and warmth, but Jamie knew that if the photo was in color, it would reveal great tufts of rich dark brown hair and equally brown eyes, just like her, as they both inherited those traits from their long gone father, though the only reason why she had dark brown hair and not the light brown hair she'd been born with was due to the serum injections which turned her into a child super-soldier. They both had their mother's same thin nose, too, but Trent's sharp chin was the only trait that he had received from their father that Jamie did not share with him. It wasn't easy to tell in the picture because it just showed Trent from the shoulders up, but he was also very strong. Not rugged, though. He had gained his strength from many year's worth of playing baseball in high school, and when it was time for him to apply to college, he had earned a full paying baseball scholarship to NYU.

Baseball was one of the greatest joys in Trent's life back when he had still been alive. He and her father had loved the sport with a fiery passion. Her father had actually been Trent's high school baseball team coach, and had personally trained him, and when he went off to college, the coach of the team at NYU had been astounded by how well he could swing a bat. He had loved Trent, and had made him, a college freshman, one of the first-string batters on the team. Trent was soon the top batter on the team, and everyone had loved him. He could always hit a home run. The coach had even pulled her brother aside one day and told him himself that he believe that Trent continued to work hard, he had what it takes to go and play in the big leagues someday. He believed that as long as Trent practiced daily and kept his dreams alive, he'd go far in his baseball career, and might even end playing for Yankees after he graduated.

But because of her cowardice, he was not here.

Trent never got to finish college.

Trent never went on to play for the Yankees.

Trent never fell in love.

Trent never got married.

Trent never had any children.

Trent never grew old.

Trent had died.

Trent had died because she abandoned him.

She felt so bad.

"I'm so sorry, Trentie…" she sobbed, tracing her brother's face with her thumb. "I'm sorry… It was my fault… My fault… I'm sorry…"

She sobbed a bit harder, and then gulped thickly and went on.

"I… I don't what to do anymore, Trent… I miss you… I miss you so much… I miss the way you call me James… I need you right now, Trentie… I need advice… I… I said such a horrible thing to Steve…"

The last emotion that was coursing throughout her body was guilt. She felt guilty not only about leaving Trent behind to die, but she also felt guilty about what she'd said to Steve. Not about the fact that she believed that he didn't care about her. She'd felt like that for awhile now, and although she didn't like the way she screamed at him, she was glad she finally told him about how she was feeling, especially about her birthday. No, what she regretted saying was that she hated him. She had not meant that at all. She'd just been so mad at that point, she blurted it out without thinking, but the second it escaped her lips, she'd felt horrible. Even if Steve did not care about her, she cared about him. He was all she had. She did not hate him at all. But she couldn't bring herself to apologize for saying, either. Instead, she'd panicked and grabbed her hoverboard and scrambled out of the room as fast as she could. She had to get away from him for a while and cry. She just wasn't capable to saying she was sorry to him right then. She needed space to cry for a little bit about everything.

"If you were here right now, Trent, you'd know what to do…" she whimpered, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. "You'd hug me… I know you would… You'd hug and tell me exactly what to do… Steve… Steve's been so nice to me… He's taken care of me ever since… ever since you…" She swallowed thickly, unable to bring herself to finish that statement. She just went on. "I know… I know he doesn't care about me more than just being his sidekick, but… but _I_ care about him. Almost as though he's my—"

She froze upon realizing what she was about to say, and snapped the pocket watch with a fast motion before jamming it back into her pocket.

She could not finish that sentence. Wouldn't doing so would be an insult to Trent's memory?

She wanted to cry even harder upon thinking that.

Everything was getting so complicated…

An abruptly loud explosion from somewhere on a floor above her suddenly making the entire ship jolt violently snapped Jamie out of her thoughts. She screamed in fear and was about to grab onto the piping beside her to keep from bouncing in place, when the ceiling above her suddenly came crashing down, and she shrieked and had to roll awkwardly out of the way, ignoring the fact that her silver torch still strapped to the special holster on her hip made it very difficult to roll, as the heavy metallic support beams that held up the ceiling came thundering down, along with the bodies of Natasha and Bruce.

* * *

Steve was blasted right off his feet when the explosion rocked the ship. He barreled right into Tony, and the two landed in a crumbled mess right beside one another. He was a tiny bit disoriented as he sat up, but a quick shake of his head cleared away his double vision, and he was good to go again. He looked around the room. The air in here after the explosion was now thick with heavy smoke, and he and Tony were the only one's to be seen inside. Near the area where Natasha and Bruce had been standing, there was a large hole in the floor, and he could only assume they must have fallen down to a lower level of the ship and were okay. Thor and Fury were missing, too. They'd both been over by the windows looking back out to the main room of the ship, but now all of them were completely shattered. He could only guess that the windows had either broke from the unexpected blast and Thor and Fury had been unlucky enough to fall out of them, or it was the other way around and they'd accidentally smashed them by crashing into them after being blasted off their feet. Whatever they were, he knew Thor would be okay. He was a God, he had extra resilience, but Fury was another story. Despite being a liar, he hoped he wasn't a bloody mess from all the glass shards.

He glanced over at Tony. He was also gathering his bearings and sitting up. He noticed Steve's stare at looked over at him. They may not be the best of friends, but the Helicarrier was currently under attack. Right now, they were allies.

"Put on the suit," he told the arrogant inventor.

For once, Tony didn't argue with him.

"Yeah," he agreed.

They both got to their feet and rushed out of the lab. They had to dodge their way around frantic S.H.I.E.L.D. agents who were hurrying in every direction in the hallway to either get to the main room and sort out what was happening, or making their way to the armory on the ship to prepare for battle.

As the two superheroes ran, they suddenly heard Fury frantically talking from the earpieces in their ears.

" _Hill!"_

" _External detonation. Number three engine is down,"_ replied the female S.H.I.E.L.D. agent still in the main room when the attack happened. There was a brief pause before she spoke again into the earpieces, and Steve and Tony could only assume she was checking on the diagnostics of the damage to the engines on the computers. _"Somebody's got to get outside and patch that engine."_

" _Stark, you copy that?"_ Fury asked.

"I'm on it," said Tony.

" _Coulson,"_ Fury went on. _"Initiate defensive lockdown in the detention section then get to the armory."_

" _Roger,"_ said Coulson.

Wordlessly, Tony turned to Steve. Steve didn't even wait to hear the upcoming question.

"Count me in," he said. He tapped the earpiece in his ear. "Fury, I'm going with Stark," he said.

" _Good idea. More help is appreciated,"_ he replied.

The two made their way through the halls toward the engines of the ship, ignoring the other maintenance workers in the engine room as they ran about. As they approached the engines, Tony turned to Steve.

"Engine three," he reminded the super-soldier. "I'll meet you there."

"Right," Steve agreed.

The two temporarily parted ways so Tony could get his Iron Man suit.

As Steve continued searching for engine three, he thought only of Jamie. He was worried sick about his little apprentice. Was she all right? She hadn't been in the lab when the explosion happened. She had run off. She could be fine, but she could have also ended up in another area of the ship that got more of the brunt of the attack, or she could have easily have been found already by the invading S.H.I.E.L.D. agents under Loki's control with that strange scepter. She'd been sad and angry when she ran off and not thinking straight. She still had her torch with her, thank heavens, but she might not be in the right mindset right now to even defend herself against the invaders. He wanted nothing more than to go and find her and make sure she was all right, but he couldn't right now. If he didn't help Tony fix this engine, the entire Helicarrier could come crashing down and kill everyone on board.

He could only pray that she was capable of looking after herself until he could finish helping Tony with the engine. Then he would be free to go and look for her.

"Be safe, J.J.," he muttered to himself.

* * *

It took Jamie several seconds to come out of her shock from seeing the two adults come crashing down from the ceiling. She forced herself back to her feet, collected her hoverboard, and quickly ran up to them to see if they were okay.

"Tasha! Bruce!" she cried.

Bruce was lying on his stomach a short distance away. He was groaning a bit from having the wind knocked out of him, but otherwise seemed to be fully conscious and unharmed, so Jamie didn't focus too much on him. She was more concerned about Natasha. The red-haired assassin also seemed to be awake and fine, but one of her ankles seemed to be trapped underneath one of the large support beams, and she was struggling to free it. She looked up in surprise from seeing the child down here as Jamie ran up to her.

"Jamie!" said Natasha. "What are you doing down here?"

"I came down to here to cry. Figured I wouldn't be bothered," said the girl absent-mindedly as she set down her board and tried to lift the metal beam off of the woman's foot. She was a child super-soldier with superhuman strength on her side. She could move it. To her dismay, it was extremely heavy. She groaned in frustration and instead tried to shove it away. This was only mildly effective, but it did budge a few inches, but not enough to get if off Natasha's foot.

As she kept trying to push it off the Russian woman and Bruce kept on grunting a bit, their earpieces buzzed.

" _Romanoff?"_ said Fury in their ears.

"We're okay," said Natasha, tapping her ear. "Jamie's down here with us. She's safe. We're all okay."

"Fury, where's Steve?" said Jamie worriedly, stopping the pushing on the beam so she could tap her own ear bud and talk to the director. Even if Steve did not care about her, she still cared about him. She was his sidekick. She had to go and help him. Just as soon as she helped Natasha get free and better checked on Bruce, that is.

" _Rogers is fine. He's with Stark. They're going to fix engine three. It was hit in the attack."_

Jamie sighed with relief, and was about to keep on pushing the metal beam, when Bruce suddenly groaning loudly caught her attention, and she turned to look at him. Bruce was now a little more alert now than he had been a minute ago. He was breathing sporadically in a strained voice, and quivering on the ground as he clenched his fists tightly and gritted his teeth. He seemed to be under a great deal of stress.

Jamie completely froze, and Natasha went wide-eyed. They both knew what was happening. What he was trying to fight off.

This was very bad.

"B-Bruce?" said Jamie nervously.

"We're okay, right?" said Natasha slowly.

Bruce did not answer either of them. He just stayed on the ground in a tense position as he fought the urge to transform.

"Jamie, run!" Natasha said in a whisper, not even looking at the ten-year-old as she stared at the generally mild-mannered scientist.

"No!" the little girl replied.

"Jamie—"

"I'm not leaving either of you here, Tasha!"

Without waiting for a response, she kept trying to move the support beam off of her. Natasha sighed. She really did not want Jamie around her right now. If Bruce transformed, he'd become a reckless, mindless monster and would not be able to tell them apart from the true enemies on the ship. She would be in a great deal of danger, and assuming she got away from Bruce, Steve would have her head if he found out that she did not force Jamie to run away from the two of them if he was in the middle of changing into the Hulk. Sadly though, she could not focus on the little girl at the moment. She had to try and talk sense into Bruce so as to calm him down and not mutate into the green-skinned beast. If for no other reason to only protect herself, Jamie, and every other person on board the Helicarrier.

"Doctor?" she said slowly. "Bruce?"

Bruce did not say anything at first. He just continued twitching on the ground and groaning loudly as he strained to fight against the Hulk's control. Finally he spared a look at Natasha and Jamie, the latter still trying to hurry to push the beam off of the first.

"Tell… the kid… to run," he grunted. He knew Natasha was trapped, and if he did transform, he would not be able to stop himself from hurting her, but he did not want to hurt Jamie. She wasn't stuck like Natasha was. She had to get away before he killed her.

"Jamie, get the hell out of here!" Natasha ordered.

"Swear word! And I'm not leaving you here!" Jamie exclaimed. She kept trying to shove the metallic support beam off her. She managed to nudge it another inch.

"Jamie—"

"I'm staying! The matter is settled!"

Natasha gulped, but looked back over at Bruce. Her insistence to stay and not run had only added more stress onto him, and he was grunting even harder than before.

"You got to fight it. This is just what Loki wants," she told him.

Bruce ignored her. His breathing was turning into thick pants.

"We're going to be okay. Listen to me—"

"Are you hurt?"

Natasha and Jamie looked up. A couple yards away were two S.H.I.E.L.D. maintenance workers. They must have heard the crash and came running to see if anyone had been injured.

Jamie quickly indicated to Bruce and then motioned for them to get out of here. They realized what she was silently saying, and hastily nodded before promptly bolting away as fast as they could. As soon as they were gone, she threw her weight against the metal beam once more. It jostled slightly another inch. Natasha's foot was now more than halfway free. A few more timely shoves and it would be completely loose.

Natasha quickly turned back to Bruce while Jamie kept trying to free her.

"We're going to be okay. All right?"

Bruce was now on his hands and knees, and jerking about somewhat. He looked like he was on the verge of losing all control.

"I swear on my _life,"_ she vowed. "I will you out of this. You will walk away and never ever—"

Bruce suddenly whipped his head around. His face was contorted in a rather hateful glare at Natasha, and she and Jamie did not fail to notice that there were great blotchy spots of emerald green scattered across his forehead and cheeks, and steadily spreading across the rest of his face.

"Your life?!" he all but growled in a low, monstrous voice.

Both of the girls went very still with fear as he began thrashing about wildly for several seconds as the green patches spread quickly all across his face before leaning backward on his knees and howling toward the ceiling as he began to mutate. The green spread from his face to his neck, and then his shoulders, and finally into his arms as they and chest began to grow in size of his rapidly developing muscles. He started to grow in size. His pants stayed attached to his body, although they ripped a bit and became frayed from the change in size, but his small purple shirt began to rip off slightly from his lean frame from the combination of his new height and raging strength, and his hands and feet both developed into thicker, meatier appendages. This caused his shoes to rip clean off his feet. He was barefoot now.

He started losing his balance from his knelt position as the transformation continued, and he fell backward and began convulsing wildly across the maintenance tunnel as the conversion continued. As the change kept going, he glanced back over and gave one last look of clarity at Natasha and Jamie, and they could both see the sad, apologetic look in his eyes for what he would most likely end up doing to them both, as well as the fear he had of becoming the horrible monster again.

"Bruce…" Natasha whispered.

The moment of his lucidity ended as quickly as it had come, and he roared ferociously as more of the muscles in his chest developed, and his purple button-down shirt tore off completely.

His transformation was finally complete.

Jamie was the first to snap out of her shock from seeing him beginning to change into the Hulk. She whirled around toward Natasha.

"Keep wiggling your foot! I have to get you out of here!" she whispered, throwing her entire shoulder against the support beam again.

It jiggled another inch. Natasha's foot was almost free.

Realizing that the girl was right, Natasha tried to help the girl and began scrambling to get her foot free. With the two of them working together, her foot soon popped out at last, and the metal jingled as it hit the concrete floor.

She was finally free.

She scrambled up to her feet as Jamie quickly snatched her hoverboard and hurried to run after her as Natasha motioned for her to follow her to the nearby metal grated stairway up to the next level of the maintenance tunnel. They had to get out of here

Their abrupt movements combined with the sound of the clang of the metal beam bouncing upon the floor seemed to catch the Hulk's attention, and he turned around to glare and snarl at them over one of his shoulders. Both Natasha and Jamie completely froze for a moment as he stood there and growled in between his exposed gritted teeth, seeming to study them as he quivered with rage. They were both terrified. Even Natasha. Generally nothing could make the ex-assassin-turned-spy afraid, but the appearance of the Hulk was more than enough to send tremors of terror jolting through her body. The man that they knew to be Bruce Banner was gone for now, and in his place was a mindless, raging monster that did not remember who they were. Not even Jamie's enhanced strength from being a child super-soldier could stop him. Even she had her limits to her strength, as shown by struggling to move that heavy beam. If she had trouble just with that, there was no way she could take on the Hulk. And she couldn't fight him with her torch, either. Although it might be possible to injure the great green creature by bashing him with her vibranium weapon, as it was the strongest metal on Earth and her mentor's shield had recently demonstrated that it was strong enough to block an attack from the Mighty Thor's hammer, it was too dangerous to get up close to the Hulk to attack him. He'd pulverize her with his massive fists. Attacking him with her fireballs was out of the question, too. If she let off one fireball while down here in the maintenance tunnels, where the pipes of the ship were completely exposed, she could cause a second major explosion on the ship and kill them all.

They had no choice but to run.

Natasha seized hold of the hand Jamie was not using to carry her hoverboard, and dragged the little girl behind her as she bolted up the stairs.

The Hulk bellowed out a roar and whirled around completely in order to thunder after them.

Natasha never even managed to drag Jamie up any further than the first landing before the Hulk was at the bottom of the staircase. She simply scooped the little girl up and threw her over to the railings of the next landing high above them. Jamie barely managed to grab onto them with her free hand and hoist herself over before Natasha leap gracefully up next to her and flipped over the bars. They both hurried to climb over a large pipe up here to increase the distance between them as and the behemoth. And not a moment too soon, as the Hulk suddenly ripped the stairs away from both the floor and the banister and threw it aside. He snarled upon seeing that they were out of reach, and began attacking the metal grated ceiling above him where he saw they landed.

Natasha and Jamie did not stop moving as he continued to smash the floor behind them as they ran across this tiny tunnel, and when they saw a small opening in the floor, they jumped down it and kept on running a short ways before crawling underneath some more pipes to get away.

"Jamie, I'm going to lead him away. When I tell you 'now,' you run!" Natasha whispered to her.

"I'm not leaving you, Black Widow," Jamie whispered back, now using Natasha's codename to signify that she should now address her as Liberty Belle.

"You will get killed if you stay down here with me."

"And you will die for sure if I don't stay here and help you," the little girl argued back. "We're in this together. Deal with it."

Natasha frowned. As much as she hated to admit it, Jamie was right.

They were in this together against the Hulk.

Their only chance at survival against the beast was by sticking together.

"All right," the assassin muttered. "Follow me!"

* * *

It took Steve several minutes to find the right engine after he and Tony had separated. He had gotten turned around in all the chaos of dodging other maintenance workers and headed in the direction of engine two by mistake. Upon seeing that that engine was still in tiptop shape, he took off toward the correct engine this time. He just hoped he was not too late.

He clambered his way toward the steel plated door that separated the inside of the Helicarrier from the outside of the plane where the damaged turbine was, and tried to pry it open. A sudden shove from the opposite end of the door helped him, and he threw it open to see one of the maintenance workers on the other side with two slightly injured workers behind him. While the first guy seemed to be unharmed, the other two must have been somewhat near the explosion when it happened. Steve nodded to the three of them as he ran past them.

"Thanks," he muttered over his shoulder to the worker that had helped him open the door.

He didn't wait to hear a response. He just hurried past them as they entered the Helicarrier, and ran to the edge of the metal landing to call out to Tony. By the amount time it took him to get here, he wouldn't be surprised if the other man had already changed into his Iron Man suit and was out here.

"Stark!" he yelled, looking around. "Stark, I'm here!"

"Good," said Tony as he came zooming up to him in his red and gold mechanized Iron Man suit. "Let's see what we've got." He turned and floated over to the destroyed engine, and studied it for several moments before speaking again, although it sounded more like mutterings to himself on what had to be done rather than instructions to him on what he, Steve, was to do. "I got to get this superconducting coolant system back online before I can access the rotors, work on dislodging the debris."

He shoved a piece of the engine that had been sticking out slightly back into place before at last shifting his helmeted head back in the super-soldier's direction. He pointed to an area on another platform across the way. There was a gap between the platform Steve was standing on and the one Tony was pointing to, but it was not an impossible jump for genetically enhanced man out of time.

"I need you to get to that engine control panel and tell me which relays are in overload position."

Steve nodded, but Tony did not see it. He was already disappearing into the wreckage of the engine. Knowing his job, Steve took a couple steps back to get a running start, and then ran forward and leaped his way across the space of the platforms to reach the other side. He cleared the jump easily, and landed steadily on his feet with no problems. Upon landing, he immediately began searching about the area for the control panel that the inventor had told him about, and quickly found what appeared to be metal box in the wall. He rushed to slide it open.

All the technological bright lights and shiny buttons bamboozled the former 1940's man, and he stared at them all in confusion for several seconds. He knew this was the control panel, but he honestly had no idea whether all the flashing lights were considered to be normal or not.

" _What does it look like in there?"_ he heard Tony say into his earpiece.

"Er… It seems to run on some form of electricity," he replied uncertainly. He was not Tony Stark. He had no idea what to do.

" _Well, you're not wrong,"_ he replied. _"Okay, now. I'm going to instruct you on how to reattach the relays…"_

* * *

Jamie gulped thickly as she crept quietly along behind Natasha in the dark steam tunnels between the pipes, pausing every few seconds to peer around the large metallic cylinders for any sign of the green beast before continuing on. It was quiet. Too quiet. And they both knew it. After they managed to get away from the Hulk, they'd heard him roar for another minute or so before he suddenly stopped making noise. Neither of them knew why he suddenly fell silent, but they both knew the monster was out there somewhere, listening carefully for the two of them as he bided his time. He was probably even tracking them somehow. These tunnels could be maze-like, and that was probably the only thing that had kept them from being torn to shreds within the first minute-and-a-half.

As Jamie followed Natasha behind another large pipe for a moment to stop and gather their bearings, she fought the urge to tremble with fear. She had been in many bad situations before in her career as Liberty Belle: she'd been inside a burning down Hydra factory, she'd been kidnapped and tortured for information she did not possess, she believed she would die alongside Steve by crashing the _Valkyrie_ in an ice field in Greenland. This current situation was being added to that list. She was terrified. She was hiding to stay alive. If Bruce killed them, he would feel terrible about it because he couldn't control his actions. She did not blame him for what was happening. He would never deliberately hurt her or Natasha, but she was very afraid. She had no chance at defending herself from the Hulk down here. Not unless she used her fireballs, and that was all but impossible.

Natasha suddenly gestured for Jamie to keep her torch ready. Jamie opened her mouth to ask what was wrong, but Natasha raised a finger to her lips to indicate her to not make a sound. The little girl silently nodded, but then pointed to her hoverboard. She couldn't really defend herself very well while still carrying it, and she couldn't just leave it behind, either. She might never find it again, and if the Hulk managed to separate the two of them and cornered her, the hoverboard could very well be her only ticket out of the corner he might back her in. Natasha pondered for a moment, but then motioned for her to just to ride it. If push came to shove, the girl could easily escape on the board while leaving her behind down here, but she'd prefer that anyway. Get the kid to safety before herself, after all.

Jamie silently nodded again, and set her board down on the floor again. She stepped onto it before making a quiet stomp on the back of the board so to rise less than an inch into the air. To both of the girls' relief, the board made no sound as it rose up. It just brought a slight movement of wind around the area. If they were lucky, the Hulk would not feel the difference in the air pressure.

Natasha slowly removed her gun from its holster on her hip, and motioned for Jamie to keep her torch firm and ready again. Jamie nodded, and tightened her grip on her vibranium rod as she floated along behind the assassin. Natasha led the little girl between more rows of pipes, keeping her eyes trained the entire time for any type of slight movement in the dark shadows. One small move and she was prepared to fire away. Right now, Bruce was not Bruce. If he were himself at the moment, he'd tell her not to hesitate to shoot them if it meant it would slow him down long enough for them to get away. And that was precisely what she would do. She did not want to hurt the man, but she wasn't going to just stand still and let the Hulk tear her and Jamie's arms out of their sockets.

There was a sudden sound nearby of heavy footfalls. Jamie fought the urge to whimper lightly upon hearing it, and instead hovered closer to Natasha. Natasha did not look at her. She was trying to pinpoint the direction of the noise. The tunnel was echoing the sound, so she couldn't quite tell where it was coming from. Annoying. She waved her hand for Jamie to follow her again, and she took a few more steps forward and Jamie hovered beside her as they headed towards the darkened, shadowy cover of some more large pipes.

As they drew closer to the next area, an abrupt thunder of howling erupted right into their ears from somewhere behind them, and they both whirled around. The Hulk was there. He'd been hiding in the cover of an enormous steam pipe to conceal his presence. Natasha didn't miss a beat. She grabbed Jamie by the upper arm and shoved her behind her before promptly shooting a single bullet at a pipe directly overhead of the green beast. A great jet of white steam shot out, and the billowing fumes momentarily blinded the Hulk as it struck him the face. He yelled out in alarm as Natasha urged Jamie to zoom as fast as she could behind her as they ran.

They both ran and flew as fast as they could in between a great deal of electrical pipes and wiring in a greatly lit up pathway. There was no point avoiding the light. The Hulk already knew where they were. They just hurried along the path. If they ran down it, maybe they'd eventually locate a door that would get them out of this lower level and back up to where they could find help.

Within seconds, the Hulk snapped out of his daze and went barreling along after them, crashing and smashing his way through the narrow passage of the electrical pipes. A great deal of dangerous sparks flew everywhere from the damaged electrical wires around the three of them, and although the Hulk was completely unworried by all the tiny lights flickering up around his head, Natasha and Jamie squeezed their eyes shut and shielded their faces from all the lights in order to keep themselves from being burned in the face. But they did not stop running. They had to get away.

Unfortunately, the Hulk caught up with them just as they reached the end of the narrow path. He slammed one of his massive hands towards Natasha and Jamie, and they both were knocked off their feet and hoverboard and towards a wall several yards away. They both whacked right into it and slid to the ground with loud thuds. Natasha groaned in pain and tried to shake off her sore body, but Jamie's enhanced durability made her hardly even feel the blow. Jamie quickly got up, and ignored how much her body was shaking in fear as she raised her torch. She would not leave Natasha here to die by the Hulk's hands, but even if she wanted to, her hoverboard was out of her reach. She might be a genetically altered child super-soldier, but she would never be able to outrun this creature. At least not while in this confined space. If she were in an open area, it might be possible. But not in here. She had no choice but to take a stand.

As the Hulk grunted and spitted in raw rage, Jamie held her torch firm and true. If she were to die here, she would go down fighting.

The Hulk grumbled one last time, and raised one of his meaty green hands to swat the small child away—

Zing.

There was a great blast of wind, and suddenly the Hulk was sent flying off to the side and through another wall by some unseen, fast-moving force.

Jamie blinked. What had just happened?

Ignoring Natasha for the moment as she seemed fine if only a little bit hurt, Jamie ran and grabbed her hoverboard before dashing over to the new hole in the wall and peering out. In addition to many S.H.I.E.L.D. maintenance workers staring in shock and alarm in the large storage area, the Hulk was on the ground, a little winded, but otherwise slowly rising back up, and beside him was Thor. Thor must've knocked into him in order to protect her and Natasha. Jamie felt her earlier fears of the Norse God fade away upon realizing this, and instead she felt the warmth of gratitude and respect.

Even Thor looked rather scared of the Hulk as the green monstrosity stood up. His eyes snapped at attention upon noticing Jamie hovering in the entryway of the large hole, and he nodded for her to hide as he rose to his feet to fight. Jamie did not hesitate. She ducked back behind the safety of the wall, but peeked her head back out again upon hearing Hulk roar and swing a fist at Thor.

Thor was probably one of the only people on board who stood a decent chance at calming the Hulk down. He dodged and threw a punch of his own, striking the Hulk right in the face. The Hulk stumbled back a few paces, but then threw a few more punches. It got to the point where Thor had to use both of his hands to stop one of the heavy throws, and every muscle in his entire body went tense as he concentrated on not letting the punch fall through his block and strike him down.

"We are not… your enemies… Banner," he groaned, his words forced as he strained to keep the punch blocked. "Try to think!"

The Hulk scoffed, and then moved his free arm to strike Thor. Thor went reeling backwards from the force of the blow, crash landing in great chunks of plaster that was being transported.

As the two began an epic brawl, Jamie turned right around and zipped back over to Natasha. As much as she didn't want to leave Thor to battle the Hulk alone, she would only get in the way of that fight. If she were to get involved and try to help, she would only distract him the same way she'd distracted Natasha. He'd be focused more on making sure she didn't get hurt rather than on fighting the Hulk. She had to leave him alone with the beast. What she could do in the meantime was check and see if Natasha was all right. She took a nasty whack against the wall.

"Widow! Widow! Are you all right?" she asked, rushing over and sitting down beside the red-haired woman.

Natasha didn't reply right away. She just rubbed the side of her body as she waved her hand to signify to the girl to give her a moment. Jamie nodded, and waited patiently for a response.

"I'm… I'm fine, Liberty…" she said after a few moments. "A little sore, but I've… I've dealt with worse…"

"What now?" Jamie asked.

Before Natasha could answer her, the entire plane seemed to sag downwards, and they both had to grab onto the piping next to them in order not to slip and slide away. The plane corrected itself after a few moments, but that didn't stop the two of them from exchanging a puzzled stare. Now what was happening? How could this entire mess possibly get worse?

" _We are in an uncontrolled descent,"_ called out an unknown S.H.I.E.L.D. agent into their earpieces.

" _Sir,"_ said a different agent. _"We've lost all power in engine one."_

" _It's Barton,"_ said Fury. _"He took out our systems. He's headed for the detention level. Does anybody copy?"_

Natasha quickly pressed her finger to her ear to transmit a message.

"This is Agent Romanoff. I copy," she said.

She quickly stood up and looked at Jamie.

"You go and find your mentor," she told the child. "He's with Stark at engine three."

Jamie froze. She wanted to help Steve. She really did. But after all the horrible things she said to him earlier, did he even want her help?

"D-don't you need m-my help?" she stuttered.

"Barton's my responsibility," Natasha answered her. "I need to do it alone. You, though, need to go to Rogers."

Jamie bit her lip and reluctantly nodded.

"Good luck, Black Widow," she whispered.

Then she hopped on her hoverboard and zoomed away.

Natasha watched her go with a small smile, and then bolted off in the opposite direction.

* * *

Steve slammed the control panel back into place in the exposed wall of the engine, and tapped the earpiece in his ear so as to get Tony's attention.

"Okay, the relays are intact," he recited. "What's our next move?"

" _Even if I clear the rotors, this thing won't re-engage without a jump,"_ Stark replied. _"I'm going to have to get in there and push."_

"If that thing gets up to speed, you'll get shredded," Steve said back.

" _That stator control unit can reverse the polarity long enough to disengage maglev and that could—"_

"Speak English!"

Tony sighed a bit, but nonetheless dumbed down the terminology for the man out of time.

" _You see that red lever?"_

Steve turned to look at the platform he'd been on originally. There was a rather large red lever up against the wall.

" _It will slow the rotors down long enough for me to get out. Stand by it. Wait for my word."_

Wordlessly, Steve ran and jumped back across the way. He moved to stand beside the lever and wait patiently.

For several minutes, he waited for Tony to send him a message, but nothing happened. He was just beginning to grow bored when two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents dressed all in black and carrying machine guns came running through the doorway on the landing below. At first, Steve assumed they were just checking to see if there were any enemies here, but they pointed their weapons at him, and Steve realized that they must be some of the invading agents under Loki's control. One of them threw a grenade at him, and Steve quickly caught it. As he jumped for cover across the gap to the other platform, he tossed the grenade into the sky. It safely exploded out of harms way of the ship.

Steve did not give the agents a moment to try and shoot him. He jumped back across the gap onto the platform directly above them, and then jumped down and kicked one in the chest. As he went down for the count, the other tried to raise his assault rifle to shoot him, but Steve deftly kicked the gun away without much effort. As it went skittering away across the metal grated floor, he and the hypnotized agent began exchanging punches. As much as it pained him to do so since it wasn't the agents fault he was attacking him, Steve had no choice but to step out of the way of a punch, and allow the agent to accidentally fall over the edge of the exposed engine to his death. Steve frowned in guilt as he watched the agent scream all the way back down to the faraway surface.

Steve shook his head after a moment, and began to run back over to the lever. Out of the corner of his eye, though, he spied movement from the hallway. He turned. There was yet another guard out there, with his machine gun pointed in his Steve's direction. While Steve jumped back up to the overhead platform to retrieve the machine gun of the guard he'd just sent plummeting to his death from across the open walkway, he heard the guard release out a small number of rapid bullets in his direction. As he prepared to aim and fire, though, there was a sudden loud grunt from the guard, and the bullets stopped flying, followed by a loud thud. Steve took a risky move by exposing his head out slightly from his crouched defensive position to get a clear view of what had just happened.

His eyes went wide. Jamie was in the hall, hovering above the ground a bit on her board with her torch in her hand and held out slightly over the unconscious body of the guard. She hadn't been able to use her fireballs to hurt him. That was too risky to do while being so close to the engines. She'd just hit the back of his head with the blunt end of it to knock him out. She paused only for a moment to put her torch back into its special holster on her hip before retrieving the agent's machine gun and then floating up to Steve wordlessly, not daring to make eye-contact.

"Captain," she greeted coolly, still not allowing herself to lock gazes with Steve as she stepped off her board and set it to the side. It would be of no use to her while firing off bullets.

She was still an emotional mess from everything she'd been forced to tell him. She was still sad and angry with him, and feeling guilty about telling him she hated him. She was only here right now because she was his sidekick. She had to fight alongside him. She had to put her personal feelings aside right now and focus on defending the ship. She couldn't let emotions run wild right now. They could talk later on.

Steve stared at her with a solemn, unreadable expression on his face. He was actually surprised to see her. He honestly didn't believe she'd come over to help him right now. He figured she'd either be with another so-called teammate, or simply fighting guards on her own throughout the hallways of the Helicarrier. He didn't think she'd have the mental capacity to come and help him right now after ending their fight the way she had less than half-an-hour ago. He wanted to continue their conversation by immediately apologizing, but they were in the middle of a battle, and they had to defend the engine while Tony fixed it. He could only promise to talk to her more later on.

"Jamie," he said, giving her a sparing glance for a moment. "Listen, I—"

"It's Liberty Belle while I'm in costume," she replied tonelessly, still not meeting his gaze. "And we need to stay focused, sir."

She tapped her earpiece before speaking again, but this time not to him. She was relaying a message to Tony.

"I'm here, Iron Man. I came to help."

" _Thanks for the backup, Girl That Never Grew Up. Just help your idiot Capsicle mentor defend the red lever. Try not to yell at each other again. At least not until after we fix this engine, then hold off long enough so I can grab some popcorn and watch."_

"Roger, sir," she mumbled back, ignoring the jive.

She moved her hand away from her ear and stood ready to possibly attack another wave of invading brainwashed S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

Steve stared at his little protégé for a moment. He couldn't believe she was so indifferent to him. He expected her to still be upset and mad, but she wouldn't even look at him. As soon as this attack was over and done with, he'd have to sit her down and talk with her calmly. Screw Fury. His protégé comes first.

In the meantime, though, they had to defend this engine. They'd talk later.

More brainwashed agents came through the door, and Steve continued firing the machine gun to keep them at bay, and although he forced himself not think about it right then, so did Jamie. She looked so sad whenever one of her own bullets managed to strike one of the invading S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, but Steve noticed that she forced herself not to cry and keep attacking. Unlike Steve, who was forcing himself to aim for critical areas on their bodies in order to keep them down, she was aiming for her bullets to be painful, but not fatal.

Hit one of their arms or legs.

Just hitting an area right above or below their lungs.

Clip one of their shoulders.

She may have killed many men before on the worst day of her life, but she did not want to kill another human being again. Not if she could avoid it.

One guard managed to breach through their barrage of bullets, and managed to wedge himself behind a slightly jutted out wall for cover before aiming at an area directly above Steve's head. Jamie managed to send the agent ducking back down for cover by shooting again, which unfortunately missed, but Steve was a bit alarmed by how close the bullets were and nearly grazed his ear. He took a couple steps back, and those few steps were enough to send him slipping off the metal grated platform and falling over the edge.

Jamie whirled around, forgetting all about the guard after shooting one last bullet to keep him at bay.

" _Captain!"_ she screamed, running towards the edge.

This couldn't be happening. He couldn't be gone. She might still be a little upset over everything her mentor forced her to reveal, but he couldn't be gone. She still had to apologize to him. He was literally all she had anymore. He can't have just left her behind like this.

To her immense relief, he hadn't plummeted to his death. He was still hanging onto the ship by an exposed piece of wiring. He was dangling in the breeze, his entire body whipping around like a red, white, and blue flag and he kept his grip on the wiring tight and firm with both of his red-gloved hands.

Jamie was a tiny bit shell-shocked upon seeing her mentor flapping about in the turbulent air. She stared him with wide eyes. She was having a flashback. She was back on the train when they were on that mission to capture the Hydra biochemist Arnim Zola. Bucky had been in the position that Steve was in now. She'd been too stunned to help her mentor save his best friend, and because of that, Bucky died. She killed him because she just stood there and didn't do anything to save him.

That would not happen this time.

She would not make the same mistake twice.

She had killed Bucky.

She had killed Trent.

She would not kill her mentor.

She would not kill Steve.

She would save him.

She ran and grabbed her hoverboard, and stepped onto it. She zipped off the Helicarrier so she was directly in front of Steve, and seized her mentor around his waist. She began trying to pull him back on board. She would not lose him the same way she had lost Trent.

Steve seemed to realize what she was doing, and began pulling himself back up via the wire so as to help her and not make her do all the work. As they hoisted him back up onto the safety of the plane, they felt the Helicarrier slowly begin to rise again. Tony must've been able to get the engine running again.

They heard him grunt into their earpieces. _"Cap, L.B., hit the lever."_

"J-just a sec!" Jamie groaned as she hovered backwards and kept tugging Steve back on board the plane.

"We need a minute here!" Steve yelled in agreement.

" _Lever… now!"_ Tony all but shouted out in alarm.

Jamie added an extra burst of speed onto the board, and that extra burst was all she needed. She managed to flop her mentor's body onto the metal grated floor of the Helicarrier. He took several necessary deep breaths of air before glancing back up at the little girl, but before he could say anything, the agent that Jamie had all but ignored in order to save Steve's life had found his courage again, and was firing at the two of them. Jamie all but leapt off of her board in order to get down and out of sight of the guard, but Steve began crawling towards the lever. If they didn't hit that switch, Tony would die. He'd get torn to shreds by the rapidly churning propeller blades.

" _Uh oh,"_ they both heard the inventor say in alarm in their ears. Before either of them could tap their earpieces again and ask what 'uh oh' meant, they heard something banging around back near the engine, and Tony yelping about in fear. _"Help!"_ he shouted.

Jamie attempted to run forward and pull the lever, but the agent fired more bullets. Jamie teetered backward to avoid them. She tilted back so much, she actually slipped, and fell on her backside. As she fell, she whacked the back of her head against an exposed piece of piping. She groaned as she fell to the ground, knocked out cold.

Steve was alarmed. He wanted to check on her, but first he had to save Tony. He crawled on his stomach to the lever, and quickly yanked it down as he avoided looking up so as to keep his head low and out of range of the flying bullets.

He heard the engines slow down for a moment, and Tony breathe a deep breath of relief in his earpiece as he escaped from the whirling piece of machinery. As Steve attempted to stand and rush over to Jamie to check on her condition, the agent blasted off a couple more bullets, and he had no choice but to stay on the ground to avoid being shot.

Tony seemed to get over his entrapment very quickly, because he suddenly came shooting out from outside and tackled the guard. The guard was instantly knocked out, and Tony quickly laid down on the ground to catch his breath. The entire ordeal had been both tiring and nerve-wracking.

Steve did not have time to regain his bearings. As soon as the agent was out of the picture, he rushed over to check on his unconscious sidekick.

"Jamie! Jamie!" he whispered, kneeling down beside her to cradle her tiny head. "Wake up! Are you okay?! Answer me! Please!"

Jamie did not respond. She just continued to lay there with her eyes shut.

Steve gulped. This was very bad. What if that fall on the exposed pipe had cracked her skull?

Tony seemed to realize that something was wrong, because he forced himself to stand and moved closer to check on the girl.

"J.A.R.V.I.S., run a scan. Check the girl's condition," he ordered the personal A.I. in his suit.

" _Scanning now, sir,"_ replied the digital male voice. There was a brief pause, and then his artificial butler spoke again. _"Scan complete. The female child is suffering from a great deal of pain from a blow to the back of her head. She has been knocked unconscious from the pain, but does not appear to have any permanently lasting damage. Scans also detect that her brainwaves are slightly out of sync, but it appears to be unrelated in any way to her injury. The scans show that her neurotransmitter levels are unbalanced on uncommon levels that border on being possibly alarming. Diagnosis: She is under a great deal of stress and is experiencing mood swings."_

Steve gulped when he heard what J.A.R.V.I.S. said. While he was relieved to know that Jamie was just unconscious and would awaken soon with probably just a sore head, it was shocking for him to know that even a machine was capable of seeing that her emotional state was unbalanced. Was he really the only person on board this ship that hadn't seen how unhappy and emotional his little apprentice was? Or maybe he had noticed all along how upset she'd been but had forced himself to ignore it. Maybe he just didn't want to admit the fact to himself that Jamie had problems. He just wanted her to go back to being the cheerful little girl he'd known her to be back in 1945 before Hydra had scarred her mentally.

He stroked her hair for a moment, but then scooped her up in his arms before grabbing her hoverboard and turning to face Tony.

"Sounds like the attack is over," he said quietly. "I'm taking her to the med-bay. Then you and I are going to find Fury."

Tony just nodded. For once, he was not going to make a smartass comment. The stone-age man was already a mess, and he had to get the kid checked out. He could hold off on being a prick for five minutes.

As they began making their way out of the exposed engine room, they suddenly heard Fury talking into their ears, and his words made them both stop cold as they listened, shocked for words.

" _Agent Coulson is down."_

" _A medical team is on its way to your location,"_ replied another agent that neither of them knew.

" _They're here. They called it."_

They exchanged bewildered looks. Coulson was dead?

* * *

 _Jamie's head ached in pain, and every sound and word she could hear was distorted to her ears as the bodies of the doctors and the only nurse in the vehicle swirled before her vision. She was extremely dizzy. Every inch of her body hurt._

 _She was in the ambulance on her way to the hospital. She hadn't seen her father, Brandon Reid Harper, since the police and doctors and single nurse had hurried to get her and the rest of her family out of their family car. They had simply looked him over once before laying him on a stretcher and draping a white sheet over his body before turning their attentions to her, Trent, and her mother. She didn't know where he was or why the other adults hadn't taken him with the three of them when they loaded the rest of them into the ambulance._

 _Where was he? Where was her Daddy? She wanted him. She wanted her Daddy. She wanted him to be the King again and assure her, the Little Princess, that he would just tickle the pain in her body away._

" _Da… Daddy…" she croaked beneath her oxygen mask._

 _The doctors and the nurse in the ambulance turned away from treating the injuries on her brother and mother and turned to her._

" _Save your energy, sweetie," said the pretty young nurse as she patted the little girl's shoulder. "We're almost to the hospital. You'll be just fine."_

" _I… I want Daddy…" Jamie went on, ignoring the nurse's words. "Head hurts… arm hurts… and wrist…"_

" _Arm? Which arm? And which wrist?"_

" _R… Right arm… Left wrist…"_

 _The nurse checked over her arm and wrist, gently poking and prodding, and earning more groans of pain from the child, as well as a few tears._

" _S-stop!" cried a voice from somewhere behind Jamie. "Y-you're… You're h-hurting James!"_

 _Although Jamie couldn't see him because of how their stretchers were arranged in the ambulance, she knew it was Trent who had spoken. Only he ever called her James._

" _She's just checking to see if her arm and wrist are broken," said one of the doctors. "Your sister will be fine."_

" _D-don't… Don't hurt my sister!" Trent groaned, fighting against the restraints on his stretcher that the doctor had strapped him down to so he wouldn't roll around in the ambulance as it sped it way through the streets of New York during the trip to the hospital. "I'm… I'm her big brother… I p-protect her!"_

" _Trent… Trenton…" whispered a tired voice from across the stretcher. "S… Stop…"_

* * *

It had taken Steve and Tony only a few minutes to make a quick detour to Jamie's room to collect her stuffed animals before going to deposit Jamie in the med-bay of the ship. The doctor on staff was nowhere to be seen. He probably took off running during the attack, but Natasha was there. She was all right, thank heavens, but she was keeping an eye on a young man she introduced to the two of them to be Clint Barton, otherwise known as Hawkeye, the master archer that Loki had brainwashed with that magic scepter of his. She'd knocked him unconscious during their fight, but she was pretty sure that the influence Loki had over her longtime friend was over the second she whacked him on the head. She listened intently when the two men explained what had happened to Jamie, and upon hearing that the girl had also been knocked out, she volunteered to keep an eye on her until Steve returned from talking with Fury.

Someone had to talk to Fury and figure out what was to be done next.

Bruce as the Hulk had been blasted out of the Helicarrier by another agent in one of the Quinjet's in order to prevent him from killing anyone on board, but everyone was certain he was still okay. He said it himself that he expected that it was downright impossible for him to die while as the Hulk.

Thor was also missing. Apparently, he had stumbled upon Loki escaping from his cell and tried to stop him, but ended up getting locked into the cell instead before Loki launched the cell out of the plane. People were certain that he was okay though, too. He was Norse demi-God. He was resilient to survive a fall like that, or at least escape from the cell with his hammer before it hit the ground.

Meanwhile, Steve and Tony were both sitting at the black conference table in the main room. There were a couple of other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents ambling about near the computers in order to get everything up and running again, but they all spoke in hushed tones. Everyone was a little shocked that they'd been attacked while in the air. While it wasn't an impossible probability, it had still been unexpected, and it had shaken everyone up.

Fury was at the head of the table, and he was staring solemnly at something small in his hands. Agent Hill stood off to the side a bit.

All four of them had their heads bowed in respect for the only agent on board the ship who had died during the attack.

"These were in Phil Coulson's jacket," Fury said quietly. "I guess he never did get you or Harper to sign them."

He flopped the packet of Coulson's vintage collection of Captain America and Liberty Belle trading cards across the table. They scattered about a bit from the force of the breeze, and they landed haphazardly across the surface of the table. Steve noticed one particular card, and picked up to stare at it sadly. It was small replica of a poster picture that he and Jamie had once posed for back when they did the USO tours across the country in '45. He was holding the fake shield he had used for the tours in one hand, and saluting the onlookers of the card with the other. At his side stood Jamie in her Liberty Belle dress. She had one hand on her hip, and the other held her sparkler torch high over her head. She was smiling merrily.

What made the card look so sad though was all of the great splotches of blood splattered across it.

"We're dead in the air up here," Fury went on slowly. "Our communications, the location of the Cube, Banner, Thor… I got nothing for you. I lost my one good eye. Maybe I had that coming…"

Steve sighed, and dropped the card back down on the table. He hated hearing this.

* * *

" _Mom…"_

" _M-mommy…"_

" _Mom is here… Mom is… gonna… make it better…_

 _Catherine Annabelle Harper was much worse off than her daughter and son. Unlike her children, who were both only suffering from a couple of cuts from flying glass, a few sprains, a concussion each, and Jamie having the only broken bone from her right arm, she was in much worse shape than them. Trent and Jamie had been protected in the backseat and were therefore only mildly hurt when they crashed into the other car, but she'd been in the front seat, and just like their father, she had gotten the brunt of the damage._

 _Her entire body was covered in cuts, and she could barely even open her eyes to look at her two children. She was breathing very shallowly into her oxygen mask, and every word she spoke took great energy out of her. She was only barely clinging onto life._

 _Trent and Jamie were not the only one's to hear her whispered words in the ambulance. So did the doctors and the one nurse. They turned to look at the dying mother._

" _Ma'am please," urged one of the doctors. "Save your strength. We're almost at the hospital. You're going to be—"_

" _Be… Be quiet…" Catherine struggled to rasp. "I… I need to… to say this… to my children…"_

" _M-mom…" Trent groaned. "Don't… No goodbyes… Everything… Everything's fine…"_

" _M-mommy?" whispered Jamie. She was too young. She didn't understand what her mother and Trent were saying._

" _Trent… Jamie…" their mother whispered. "L-look… Look at me…"_

 _Trent and Jamie fought against the pain in their bodies to look over at their mother._

 _Their mother gave them a pained smile._

" _Look at you two… You've both… You've both gotten so big… You're both perfect… My… wonderful son," she tiredly breathed. "Trent… I… I need you to… to promise me something…"_

" _A-anything, Mom…" Trent said, fighting against the urge to cry._

" _Take care of her…" Catherine begged. "Take care of Jamie… She's… She's your only sister… Love her, Trenton… Show her right from wrong… Be there for her… Because… Because your father and I—"_

" _I will, Mom," Trent interrupted, his eyes now brimming with tears that had nothing to do with his physical pain. These were tears of emotional pain. "I… I promise… I'll look after my sister…"_

 _Catherine smiled. "Thank you."_

 _She turned her head to look at her youngest daughter._

" _Ja… Jamie…"_

* * *

"Yes," Fury went on, now beginning to circle the table. "We were going to build an arsenal with the Tesseract. I never put all my chips on that number, though because I was playing something even riskier."

Despite the sad atmosphere in the room, Steve looked up at Fury with a puzzled expression. What else had S.H.I.E.L.D. hidden from him? Hidden from everyone? He opened his mouth to tell the Director that he was not in the mood to hear any more lies at the moment, but Fury was already continuing.

"There was an idea, Stark knows this" — Fury paused for half-a-second to gesture to the multi-billionaire. Steve glanced over at the man as Tony looked up from the spot on the floor he'd been staring a hole into ever since he sat down — "called the Avengers Initiative. The idea was to bring together a group of remarkable people to see if they could become something more. To see if they could work together when we needed them to, to fight the battles that we never could."

Neither Steve nor Tony had anything to say to that. So that's why Fury brought them in. He wanted them all to become the team known as the Avengers. To save the planet from Loki's wrath of twisted monarchy with his Chitauri army.

The question was could they do it?

Could they all work together as a team to stop Loki?

They were all very different people.

Steve was Captain America, a World War II soldier out of time that had no idea what he was doing in this modern world.

Tony was Iron Man, an egocentric playboy billionaire that had turned himself into a hero but didn't know how to work with other people.

Natasha was Black Widow, a former Russian spy and assassin that was purely devoted to S.H.I.E.L.D. and other than Clint, trusted no one but herself.

Clint was Hawkeye, a longtime agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. and a master of archery and was still recovering from Loki brainwashing him with that magic scepter of his.

Thor was a Norse demi-God of thunder and lightning, and Loki's adopted brother. He would do whatever it took to protect the earth, but also to protect his sibling.

Bruce was the Hulk, a mild-mannered scientist that had been transformed into a mindless beast due to an experiment gone wrong and now lived each day of his life in fear that he would hurt other people without meaning to.

And finally, there was the youngest member of this so-called team.

Jamie was Liberty Belle, Captain America's sweet, innocent young sidekick. A girl with fractured mental problems who tended to blame herself for when things went wrong even if she had nothing to do with what had happened.

Could they do it?

Could they all join forces and defend the Earth from evil?

Fury seemed to guess what they were both thinking, and went on.

"Phil Coulson died still believing in that idea. In heroes."

That was too much for Tony. He quickly rose to his feet, and avoided everyone's eyes as he quietly exited the room.

Steve stared after him as Fury sighed.

"Well," the Director muttered, "it's an old-fashioned notion."

* * *

" _Mom… Mommy…? Why do you look… so sad…?"_

 _Catherine Harper gave her sweet little daughter a strained smile at her innocent question. She was too little. Too little to fully understand what she was trying to tell her. One day, Trent would be able to explain all this to her when she was older. That she was sad right now because she'd never see her daughter grow up. She'd never see her turn nine-years-old in a few months, graduate one day from high school, or go to college. Fall in love and get married. Eventually start a family… Right now, her little eight-and-a-half-year-old daughter was instead going to watch her slip away…_

" _Never… Never mind that, Jamie…" Catherine whispered. "Give… Give me your hand… I-I-I want to tell you… a secret…"_

" _A… A s-secret?"_

" _Y-yes… G-give me… your hand…"_

 _It took Jamie a great deal of effort to lift her uninjured arm. She strained to move it across the space of the tiny ambulance to reach out to her mother's outstretched fingers. It was no good, though. She couldn't reach._

" _I… I can't, Mommy…" Jamie groaned. "I can't… I can't reach…"_

" _Help…" Catherine moaned to one of the doctors. "Help me… I need… I need her hand… I need to hold… my daughter's hand…"_

 _Wordlessly, the doctors moved Jamie's stretcher a little closer to her mother's. They would stay silent and do this for the woman. Judging by the stats on the woman, she didn't have much time left. Let this be her final goodbye to her daughter._

 _As soon as they stepped away, Catherine reached out and took hold of Jamie's small hand. Jamie didn't understand why her mother's hand felt so cold._

" _M… Mommy… your hand is cold…"_

" _It's… It's okay, sweetheart," her mother whispered. "Just listen…"_

 _Jamie forced her head to nod despite how dizzy she was at the moment. She kept her eyes firmly locked on her mother's. Even Trent was silent. He'd said his goodbye to their mother. Now it was time for their mother to do the same with Jamie._

" _I… I want to tell you… a secret…" her mother began. "A secret… that will see you through… all of the trials that life will bring…"_

 _Jamie stared, not understanding what her mother was saying._

" _Mommy…?"_

" _Jamie…" her mother went on, her voice slowly losing volume the longer she spoke. "You… you are so special… So special in ways… that I can't even describe… You… You have… more love and kindness in your little heart… then most people will ever know… in their entire life… Promise me, my love… Promise me… that you will always keep that love… Have courage, and be kind… Promise me…"_

" _I… Why, Mommy…?" Jamie whimpered._

" _Promise me…"_

 _Jamie began to cry, even though she didn't understand why._

" _I… I promise, Mommy…" she sobbed. "I love you… I promise…"_

 _Catherine smiled weakly to her little girl._

" _Mommy loves you, too… my sweet angel. You and Trent…" she glanced over at her son. "I love you, too, Trenton…"_

 _Trent's eyes filled with tears, and he reached out to join in with Catherine and Jamie's linked hands._

" _I love you, too, Mom…"_

 _Catherine smiled again as her breathing grew even more shallow._

" _Never…" she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Never let go… of these promises…"_

 _Jamie and Trent both struggled to nod their head._

" _Never…" said Trent._

" _We promise… Mommy…" said Jamie._

 _Catherine's smile only grew fainter, but it was impossible to miss the love that spread across her face as hearing her children's words._

" _Never… Never… let go…"_

 _Her eyes slowly drooped back inside her head._

 _Her breathing stilled._

 _Her hand went limp._

 _Jamie and Trent stared._

" _Mom…?"_

" _Mom… Mommy?"_

 _There was no response from their mother._

 _It took Jamie and Trent several moments to realize what had just happened. As the doctors and the nurse moved their hands away from Catherine's so they could try resuscitating her, Jamie and Trent both cried._

" _Mom!"_

" _Mommy!"_

* * *

When Clint Barton awoke from the small slumber he'd been put into via Natasha, he was confused and disoriented. He was covered in a thick layer of sweat, and his head felt extremely foggy, but also free of a weight he himself had been unaware of up until then. He shook his head from side-to-side as he tried to regain his bearings and figure out where he was.

He was in the med-bay back in the Helicarrier. How he got there was a bit hazy, but he'd deal with that in a moment. Right now, he was more concerned about the fact that his arms were tied down with leather straps to prevent him from moving, and that his friend Natasha was sitting on a chair beside his bed and watching him. From behind her, he could make out the form of a little girl possibly no older than eleven, at the most. She was fast asleep in the bed, and her arms were wrapped around a stuffed panda doll and a stuffed cat. He didn't know who the girl was, but he'd figure that out later. First, he had to figure out what was going on with his memories.

He remembered… attacking others? That made no sense to the man. He was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent and he'd never attack one of his comrades, or any other innocent civilian for that matter. And yet, he had distinct memories of not only shooting some of his arrows at other S.H.I.E.L.D. employees here on the Helicarrier, but also attacking various guards at a museum in Stuttgart, Germany. But why would he do something like that? He'd never deliberately attack anyone.

Memories danced before his eyes, and then more puzzle pieces came together. He'd been brainwashed by that rat bastard of a Norse demi-God, Loki. He had used that magic scepter of his to tamper with his head. He'd love to introduce that infuriating arrogant asshole to one of his exploding arrows now that he had his head clear of his magical influence.

"Clint," said Natasha, bringing his attention to her. "You're going to be all right."

He blinked a few more times for good measure to help refocus his vision before responding.

"You know that?" he chuckled darkly, ashamed of the memory he had of attacking his longtime friend and partner. "Is that what you know? I've got no window. I have to flush him out…"

Natasha moved to pour the man a cup of water, which she promptly handed over to him.

"You got to level out. It's going to take time," she told him.

"You don't understand," he groaned. "Have you ever had someone take your brain and play? Pull you out and stuff something else in? Do you know what it's like to be unmade?"

"You know that I do," she said quietly.

Clint sighed, and then looked around the room again. His eyes fell on the little girl asleep in the bed next to his.

"Did I—? Did I attack—?"

"That's Jamie Harper, otherwise known as Liberty Belle," said Natasha quickly. "She got knocked out during the attack, but it had nothing to do with you. I promise."

Clint nodded in relief. While it wasn't exactly a good thing that the girl was hurt, he was relieved to know that he personally did not hurt her.

"Why am I back?" he asked. "How did you get him out?"

"Cognitive recalibration," she replied, moving to sit down beside him on the bed. "I hit you really hard on the head."

"Thanks," he said.

There was a brief pause as the Russian woman began untying the bonds that strapped the agent down to the bed.

"Natasha…" he said hesitantly. "How many agents did I—"

"Don't," she immediately interrupted, stopping her work to look her partner right in the eye. She would not allow him to blame himself for anything he might have done while under Loki's control. It had not been his fault. "Don't do that to yourself, Clint. This is Loki. This is monsters and magic, and nothing we were ever trained for."

Clint hesitantly nodded. "Loki, did he get away?"

"Yeah," she said. "I don't suppose you know where?"

To Natasha's dismay, Clint shook his head this time.

"Didn't need to know," he said. "I didn't ask."

Natasha sighed, and stood up from the bed to go and look out the window that showed the hallway.

"He's going to make his play soon, though," Clint went on. "Today."

Natasha turned to look at him at those words.

"We got to stop him."

"Yeah? Who's 'we?'"

"I don't know," Natasha admitted with a small shrug. "Whoever's left."

"Well, if I put an arrow through Loki's eye socket, I would sleep better I suppose," Clint sarcastically joked, taking a sip from the water.

Natasha smiled, and moved to sit down beside him again on the bed.

"Now you sound like you."

"But you don't," Clint pointed out.

Natasha grew quiet, and became fixated on watching Jamie in the bed opposite them.

"You're a spy," Clint continued. "Not a soldier. Now you want to wade into a war. Why? What did Loki do to you?"

"He didn't," she said. "I just…" She trailed off, not knowing what to say.

"Natasha..."

"I've been compromised," she said finally. "I got red in my ledger. I would like to wipe it out."

Clint frowned. Did he tell Loki all about how she had once been a part of the KGB? And did he, Loki, end up telling her back that he had told him? If he did, he was very sorry. That was something he had promised her that he'd keep secret for his best friend.

He opened his mouth to apologize to her, but a sudden moaning from the bed across the room distracted both him and Natasha, and they immediately turned to look. Jamie, who had been laying still only a few minutes prior, was now moaning and groaning in her bed. She was frowning in her sleep, and there were tears in her eyes as she hugged her toys to her chest and began whimpering. She twisted and turned about in her sleep as her nightmare raged on.

"Mom… Mommy!" she cried, still fast asleep. "Mommy!"

Natasha immediately stood up and crossed the room. She tried to shake the girl awake.

"Jamie," she said kindly, gently shaking the ten-year-olds shoulder. "Jamie, wake up. It's just a nightmare."

It took her almost a full minute of shaking the little girl before Jamie's eyes finally opened. She groggily woke up with red eyes.

"Ta… Tasha?" she whispered, her voice small and sad.

Natasha smiled kindly down at her. "Hey, had a bad dream?" she asked her kindly.

Jamie's face burned, and she immediately collected her toys, and pushed Natasha out of her way as she stood up from the bed. She all but ignored the baffled expressions form both her and Clint — whom she'd never met but was not in the mood for introductions right then — and crawled under the space between her bed and the floor.

She was completely humiliated. Why oh why had she been stupid enough to get herself knocked out like that during the fight? Because of that, she had a nightmare about the day her mother died, and when she had nightmares, she talked and cried in her sleep. And unless she wore a gag while she slept, it brought the attention of adults to her. She didn't want that. She just wanted to stay in a dark place and be left alone. She wanted to cry to herself without their pity and asking them what happened in the nightmare.

Natasha and Clint stared at her tiny form hidden underneath the bed with her two toys for several seconds in disbelief. Clint had not been on the Helicarrier earlier when Jamie had her meltdown, so he had no idea what was going on with the girl, but Natasha really didn't know what to do for the frightened, embarrassed child. She never had any opportunity to spend time around kids, but judging by everything that Jamie had revealed in her mental breakdown earlier, she was a sensitive child who periodically got nightmares about her terrible past, and tried to hide that fact by sleeping with a gag in her mouth so no one would know about it. Natasha knew she couldn't leave the girl under there like that, hiding under the bed. She was going to have to try to coax her out.

She knelt down at the foot of the bed, and peered down underneath to catch a glimpse of Jamie's teary face all but hidden in the shadows of the bed.

"Hey, don't be afraid," she said softly. "Come on out."

"No…" Jamie whispered, making herself into a tight ball underneath the cot as she hugged Pannie and Gigi tightly. "I'm humiliated…"

"Humiliated?"

"Yes," Jamie cried, fresh tears gathering in the corners of her eyes. "This is… This is embarrassing… You and that guy there! You both… You both me saw me have a nightmare! It's embarrassing!"

There was the sound of a small sob from underneath the bed.

"There's… There's nothing to be embarrassed about," Natasha said slowly. "Everyone has bad dreams sometimes. No one's judging you."

"You may not, but he is! He thinks… He thinks I'm a crybaby!"

Jamie pointed a shaky finger out from under the bed at Clint, who simply stared at the hand, blinking a bit in confusion as to what was going on with the girl.

"I… I'm not judging you," he said slowly. He liked kids just fine, but he could tell just from this first encounter that this girl had problems. He didn't know what, he'd have to ask Natasha or even her mentor Captain America later on what the deal was with Jamie, but she seemed so scared of everything right now, and she seemed desperate to be considered normal, even though her behavior at the moment could be considered extremely concerning. Right now, though, the main problem was convincing this kid that it was all right that she'd apparently had a bad dream and she could come out from what she considered to be her safe haven.

"Yes, you are," she sobbed. "You think I'm crazy, don't you? Well, I'm not! I'm not crazy!"

There were a few more small sobs from beneath the bed again.

"No one here thinks you're crazy, Jamie," said Natasha at once. "We do, however, think you're a little girl who's very sad and scared right now. If you come out, we promise we won't yell at you."

"But will Steve?" Jamie deflected. "He'll yell, won't he? He'll yell at me because I was dumb enough to get hurt…"

Clint threw Natasha a baffled look at that. Did the legendary Captain America honestly yell at his sidekick just for getting injured while during battle? Natasha gave him a discreet shake of her head to assure him that that would not happen, and then looked back down at Jamie.

"Jamie, Rogers only yelled at you earlier because he was scared about you, and not thinking straight at the time," she calmly explained. "The truth is, he's very worried about you, and he really does care about you a whole lot."

"No, he doesn't," Jamie said simply. "Steve doesn't care about me. He doesn't…"

"That's not true, Jamie," Natasha once again calmly deflected. "He cares about you a great deal. You should have seen him after you two fought earlier. He's very worried about you."

Jamie didn't say anything for a long time after that. She just stayed silent underneath the bed. Finally, she spoke up again.

"I… I wish… I wish I could believe you, Tasha… Really, I do… But I don't… I honestly believe he doesn't care… He _doesn't_ care about me…"

Natasha frowned. She could beg and plead with this girl to believe what she said about Steve caring about her all day, but it wouldn't make a difference, because no matter what she said, she wasn't the one who had to prove to this girl that Steve does indeed care about her. That was Steve's responsibility and that was going to have to be a conversation between the two of them before they could all go and fight Loki. In the meantime, though, she could at least convince her that there was nothing to fear but coming out from underneath the bed.

"Well, then know that _I_ at least care," she told the little girl. "I personally think that you're a very sweet little girl, Jamie. Everything that's happened to you in the past was very bad, and it's horrible to know that you still get nightmares over it, but it is not your fault, and no one here judges you any differently because you get them. In fact, I am actually concerned about you because you do get nightmares. I want to help you, Jamie. And so does Clint here. That reminds me, you two haven't been introduced yet, have you? Well, this is my friend Clint, and he's just as worried about you as I am."

"Nat's right," said Clint, quickly moving down to the floor beside Natasha to gently coax the girl out. "It's nice to meet you, Jamie. Really, it is, but I'm just as worried about you as Nat is."

"Don't call me Nat," Natasha said with a small smile, trying to lighten the mood.

"Whatever you say… Nat."

Natasha rolled her eyes, but then turned her attention back to Jamie. "A lot of people want to help you, Jamie, but you have to let us help you first."

She reached her hand out towards the expanse in front of the darkness underneath the bed.

For a long time, there wasn't a sound to be heard from Jamie. Clint and Natasha just watched as the little girl just stared at Natasha's outstretched hand. Natasha was offering her a chance to get help. But didn't help mean that she'd just go back to the electric chair again for therapy? She couldn't accept.

"I… I can't!" she finally said, shaking her head back and forth as more tears flowed down her face. "I don't… I don't wanna go back!"

The two adults shared a puzzled look at that. They didn't know what she was talking about.

"Go back?" Natasha asked. "Go back where?"

"The electric chair!" Jamie sobbed. "I don't want to go back to the electric chair!"

Now Clint was completely shocked. What the hell had happened to this kid before that made her get sent to the electric chair?

He turned to look at Natasha for an explanation, but Natasha was completely confused. Where had this girl gotten the idea that she'd be sent back to the electric chair if she accepted their help to just be comforted?

"Where… where did you get idea?" she asked the little girl.

"From Steve…" Jamie sobbed, hugging her toys to her chest.

"From Rogers?" Natasha repeated, her confusion only growing by the minute. "Rogers would never—"

"Yes, he would!" Jamie interrupted, her eyes brimming with even more tears. "I heard him! Him, Colonel Phillips, Agent Carter, and Howie! It was back 1945 after the whole incident! I heard them all! They were talking about what was to be done with me! They talked about sending me to the electric chair for therapy because I was crazy! I'm not crazy! I don't _need_ help!"

More sobs erupted from the child, and she turned away from Natasha and Clint to lay down on her side wall facing the wall under her bed, and cry to herself quietly as she hugged her stuffed panda and stuffed kitty.

The two adults exchanged looks of bafflement.

It appeared that there were still more things yet to be uncovered about Jamie Elizabeth Harper's line of thinking.

* * *

Steve entered the detention facility on the ship. He had followed Tony here to talk to him, and sure enough, there was Tony, just staring at the spot Coulson had apparently been found in by Fury and the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents when he was dying. Tony didn't look over when he heard the blonde super-soldier come in. Without the enormous circular prison cell, the room looked very empty all of the sudden, but Steve didn't focus on the emptiness. He just leaned up against the wall near the entrance, folded his arms across his chest, and stared across the way at Tony.

Unlike Steve, who had only just met Coulson the other day and although thought the man to be rather odd with his fanatic for him as Captain America and Jamie as Liberty Belle, he still thought him to be rather nice even if he didn't know him well, but Tony had apparently known Coulson for years. He'd apparently been the one to debrief him after his kidnapping incident with the Ten Rings a couple years ago. They'd apparently been buddies. He was obviously hurting from Coulson's death.

Steve spoke up in a quiet voice.

"Was he married?"

"No," Tony replied. "There was a cellist, I think."

"I'm sorry," Steve replied. "He seemed like a good man."

"He was an idiot," Tony corrected, looking up at Steve for the first time.

"Why? For believing?"

"For taking on Loki alone," he explained, now beginning to walk over.

"He was doing his job," Steve protested.

Tony scoffed. "He was out of his league. He should have waited. He should have—"

"Sometimes there isn't a way out, Tony."

"Right," Tony replied, rolling his eyes. "I've heard that before."

Steve wasn't fazed by his sarcastic comments. "Is this the first time you lost a soldier?" he calmly asked.

Immediately, Tony became defensive. "We are _not_ soldiers." He growled.

Steve said nothing in reply. He just stared solemnly at Tony. They may not be S.H.I.E.L.D.'s soldiers, but they were still the one's that people called upon to defend the Earth should trouble arise.

Tony sighed as he also realized this, and then went on. "I'm not marching to Fury's fife."

"Neither am I," Steve immediately agreed. "He's got the same blood on his hands that Loki does. But right now, we got to put that behind us and get this done."

Tony didn't reply, but looked over at the bloodstain left behind on the floor.

"Now, Loki needs a power source," Steve pressed. "If we can put together a list—"

"He made it personal," Tony interrupted.

Steve sighed. "That's not the point."

"That is the point," the famed inventor disagreed. "That's Loki's point. He hit us all right where we live. Why?"

"To tear us apart," Steve answered.

"Yeah, divide and conquer is great but he knows he has to take us out to win, right?" he pointed out. "That's what he wants. He wants to beat us, he wants to be seen doing it. He wants an audience."

As Tony began pacing about wildly to figure out his thought process, Steve just stared at him with a puzzled expression.

"Right, I caught his act in Stuttgart."

"Yeah, that was just previews," Tony objected. "This is… This is opening night! And Loki, he's a full-tilt diva, right? He wants flowers, he wants parades. He wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered—"

He cut himself off as he suddenly realized what Loki's final target was.

Steve also realized it, and although it was worrisome, he couldn't help but hide a snicker.

Because Loki was exactly like Tony.

He did want a monument built to the sky with a name plastered.

There was only one thing that could compare to that.

The Stark Tower in New York City.

"Son of a bitch," Tony muttered.

"Guess we know we're all going next, huh?" Steve asked.

"Go get the others," Tony mumbled, walking over to the door. "I'm not giving up that tower without a fight."

"Give me fifteen minutes."

" _Fifteen minutes?!_ It may not be anything of yours Loki's taking, but I—"

"I need to talk with Jamie before we go."

Immediately, Tony's angry expression melted off his face. Because Steve had a point there. He did need to talk with his protégé before this final battle.

"I'll give you ten. I still need to repair my suit, after all," Tony said, and then left the detention center to make some quick repairs to his Iron Man suit.

Steve soon left, too, and headed directly to the med-bay. He knew Clint and Natasha were there along with Jamie. Although his only experience with Clint had been him trying to harm everyone on board the Helicarrier, he held no ill will to the man. He'd been under Loki's control, and he had Natasha's stamp of approval. She was a great judge of character. It saved him a trip on finding them all in different areas of the ship. But he had to talk things over with Jamie before they all went to New York. He'd probably have to ask Clint politely if he wouldn't mind leaving the room early, as he'd prefer just having Natasha in the room should Jamie ask him questions about… the dress incident in her captivity. That was something she should discuss with a woman. If that had been what she had wanted to ask Natasha about earlier when she told her she had something to ask her in private, he did not blame her for hiding that from him. That must have been an embarrassing and confusing thing for her that she did not understand and had not been comfortable telling him about.

But that still left one question: Why did she never tell anyone anything until now?

The only incident with the almost rape? Even if she did not want to tell him about it, which he completely understood, why did she never tell Peggy about it at least back in '45?

The electrocution and the beatings? He may have gotten short with her earlier about that, but that was only because he was mad that she did not tell him about it before. Had she told him herself right after everything had happened, he would not have yelled at all. He would have tried to comfort her.

Her blaming herself for Trent's death? That was not her fault whatsoever. He would never have blamed her for that. It had just been a bad situation that had been beyond her control and she had been completely outnumbered and scared. Her brother told her to leave him behind, and had he himself been there, as much as it pained him to say it, he probably would have dragged her away from that base himself.

Her safety was very important to him, and from now on while on the battlefield, it would be one of his top concerns. He should have followed her back when she ran off chasing that Hydra agent all those years ago. Not Trent. Had he not been so concerned with getting that stupid biochemist Arnim Zola to the retrieval point and instead gone after her, none of this would have happened. That would not happen again. He was going to be a better mentor and guardian to his ward from now on.

He found the med-bay, and unlocked door. Jamie and Clint were nowhere to be found inside, but Natasha had been standing by the bed Clint had been sleeping in and rubbing her temples, but she looked up when she saw Steve enter.

"Time to go," he told her.

"Go where?" she asked.

"I'll tell you on the way," he replied. "Can you fly one of those jets?"

The door leading off to the small bathroom in the back opened, and Clint exited as he wiped his hands on a small towel.

"I can," he said.

"You got a suit?" Steve asked him.

"Yeah," the S.H.I.E.L.D. archer said with a nod.

"Then suit up," Steve ordered. Then he turned to Natasha. "Where's Jamie?"

To his surprise, Natasha and Clint exchanged uneasy looks.

"What?" Steve asked.

"We should talk outside," said Natasha.

Clint nodded in agreement, and they both gestured for Steve to follow them out to the hallway. Steve nodded, puzzled, but nonetheless did as they said. As soon as they were out in the hall again, Clint quietly shut the door and he and Natasha both turned to face Steve.

"What exactly is going on now?" Steve asked. "Where is Jamie? She didn't run off again, did she?"

"Run off again?" Clint repeated, not understanding. He was the only member of the team that didn't know the entire story with Jamie, and he was confused. He turned to look at Natasha for some type of explanation, but Natasha just waved her hand.

"It's a long story, Clint, and not mine to tell," she said. Then she turned back to Steve. "Jamie's… well, I don't know how to put this…"

"Tell me."

"She's crying under the bed," she said. "And she told me and Clint something very concerning."

Immediately, Steve became alarmed. "What? Did something else happen to her during her capture?"

"No, not during her capture," Natasha responded coolly as she folded her arms and gave Steve a piercing glare. "It was actually something that she claimed she heard you and some other army officials saying after her captivity."

Now Steve was really confused. What was going on?

"What?"

"She claims that she doesn't want us to help her get over her fears, because she seems to be under the impression that if she accepts our help, you're going to send her right back to the electric chair."

Steve stared. He blinked several times as he processed that information.

"I would send her…? I would _never_ do that!"

"She thinks otherwise," Natasha proclaimed. "She claims that not long after her capture, she overheard you and some other people talking about what was to be done with her, and someone suggested electro-shock therapy."

Steve blinked, and began racking his brain back to the month right after Jamie's capture in '45. When had anyone ever suggested electro-shock therapy? Then it hit him. There had been a conversation between him, Peggy, Howard, and Colonel Phillips the night before the big war council for the final attack against Johann Schmidt. Everyone had been arguing on what was to be done with Jamie because people weren't sure if she was fit to return to the battlefield. He personally thought that Jamie wasn't capable emotionally to go back out into battle at the time, but Colonel Phillips wanted her to go back out, and had suggested that after the final battle, they look into therapy for her. Possibly electro-shock. He, Howard, and Peggy were firmly against that decision. While they all agreed that the little girl might need some form of help, no one wanted to send her to the electric chair. She wasn't insane. She was troubled, but not electric chair crazy.

The most important thing to remember was that that had all happened in 1945. It was a different time period. While people used the electric frequently for therapy, there were still people out there who still thought it was immoral. Steve, Peggy and Howard were among that group of people, and had made their beliefs quite clear to the Colonel. The idea had been scratched right then and there. The question was, did Jamie know that? She used to eavesdrop on people back then. If she had only heard half of that conversation…

"Fuck…" Steve muttered, running his hand through his hair in frustration.

"I'm guessing you at least have an idea on what she's talking about?" Clint asked.

"First off, I want to state in advance that I think she might have only overheard half of a conversation, and if she'd overheard the second half, she'd know for a fact that I would never had allowed that to happen, regardless of what happened to her when Hydra took her…"

"I suggest you go in there right now and explain that to her," Natasha said. "Because no matter what either of us have said to her, she won't come out from under that bed. You two really need to talk."

Steve nodded, and then opened to the med-bay a second time and went inside.

Now that he was listening carefully, he could make out the faint sound of small sobs from underneath the bed Jamie had been lying down in when he dropped her off approximately half-an-hour ago. He hadn't expected her to get embarrassed and crawl underneath her bed when she woke up like she did back in their army days. She must have been embarrassed by everything. He sat down on the floor beside the bed.

"Hey, J.J.," he greeted her calmly.

Immediately, the small sobs ceased, and he could see his little apprentice sit up from her laying down form with her plush toys and stare at him from the dark enclosure. She did not say anything in reply. She just stared at him.

Jamie didn't know what to do upon seeing Steve here. She hadn't been expecting him to come and see her so soon. She knew she had to apologize to him for saying that she hated him, but she didn't want to talk to him any further than that right now.

"Listen Jamie, I—"

"I'm sorry," she interrupted.

Steve stared. What was she apologizing for?

"Sorry?" he repeated. "For what?"

"For saying I hated you," she said, turning her head away in embarrassment as she hugged Pannie and Gigi to her chest. "I didn't mean it. I'm sorry…"

Steve didn't say anything for a moment. He really hadn't thought much about that comment whatsoever. His primary concerns about talking to her was getting her to believe that nothing that had happened back in World War II had been her fault, and that he honestly did care about her. It was typical of her to think that that stuff was unimportant, and she'd instead focus on the one comment he himself had not been focusing on whatsoever.

"Apology accepted," he said kindly. "But you and me still need to talk. Why don't you come on out? It'll be easier to talk if I can see you better."

"I'm fine right here."

"Jamie, please."

"No."

Steve sighed. "Jamie, please give me a chance to talk to you."

"Why? I don't want to be yelled at anymore. I already told you everything you _demanded_ to know, and in front of Tasha, Bruce, Tony, Thor, and Fury, so what else is there to say?" she retorted.

Steve lips pressed together in a tight line. He was really regretting losing his temper earlier and forcing her to tell her everything that had happened to her. Granted, she did need to tell him about it, but he should not have forced her tell her about it like that, and certainly not in front of the others.

"Jamie," he began gently. "I'm sorry that I made you tell me about all that stuff the way I did. Really, I am… But after hearing what you'd been telling all the others about what happened to you, and then seeing you admit to the electrocution to Loki… it came as a shock. A very big shock, and I needed to hear you tell me yourself. I'm sorry that I forced you to tell me like that about what happened to you."

"Are you going to take away my mask?" she asked him quietly.

Steve blinked. Where had that idea come from?

"Of course not! Why on earth do you think I would do that?"

"Because I failed," she whimpered, hugging her toys even tighter. "I killed Trent. Just like how I killed Bucky. I failed as Liberty Belle. I failed to save people…"

Steve frowned.

"No, you did not," he told her.

Jamie blinked at him from the darkness.

"But, I did! I killed—"

"Jamie, I'm going to start off by saying that Bucky's death had nothing to do with you," he said firmly. "What happened to Bucky had been the result of a Hydra guard that blasted his gun at him and he'd been unlucky enough to be knocked out of the train. I tried to save him, but he fell before I could reach him. It had absolutely nothing to do with you. Do you understand me?"

Jamie stared at him.

"But… you yelled at me after he fell," she protested. "You yelled!"

Steve tensed as he recalled the time when Bucky died. Looking back on it, he really reacted poorly to his lifelong friend's death. He should never have taken his anger at the situation out on his partner.

"I… I did not mean to yell at you back then," he told her. "That was wrong of me. I should not have done that. And I am very sorry if I _ever_ gave you the impression that I blamed Bucky's death on you, J.J., or that you had to prove yourself to me that you need to be a better apprentice, because I have never once thought that…"

Jamie slowly nodded. While she was relieved to know that she'd been wrong about the facts that he blamed her for Bucky's death or that she needed to be a better protégé to him, she wasn't entirely sure if she herself believed it. People just can't change their line of thinking so quickly.

"As for everything that had happened when you were captured—"

Jamie froze and looked away from him.

"I… I don't care," she said quickly. "I don't care!"

"Why didn't you tell me about what happened to you sooner?"

Jamie didn't answer him.

"Jamie…"

"I… didn't want to talk about it," she whimpered. "I didn't want to remember it… I didn't want to think about it… But then I overheard a conversation between you and the others on base about—"

"—about what was to be done with you," he finished.

Jamie stared at him, surprised that he knew about that.

"Natasha and Clint just told me," he explained. "They said you heard about the electro-shock therapy that Phillips suggested, right?"

Jamie reluctantly nodded. "I… I didn't want to go back to the electric chair!" she sobbed. "I'm not _ever_ going back to the chair! I'll… I'll jump off this Helicarrier without my hoverboard first before I go back! Don't send me back!"

"I'm not going to," he told her simply.

Jamie immediately stopped crying and looked at him in astonishment.

"You're… You're not going to?"

"Jamie, I want you to answer me honestly. How much of that conversation between me, Phillips, Peggy, and Howard did you hear?"

"I… I woke up one night from a really bad nightmare. None of you knew because… because I tied a gag in my mouth."

"When we get home, you and I are going to have a long conversation about that," Steve interrupted. "Your nightmares are not something you should have hidden from me, and you tying a gag in your mouth to keep me from knowing about them ends today. Do you understand?"

Jamie nodded in reply.

"Good. Continue, please."

"W-well… I woke up from the nightmare, and… and I wanted a hug… I didn't care whom it was from, I just wanted a hug. I left my room with Pannie and Gigi and started looking around for someone. I saw you all in the main room of the base. I meant to go in and ask one of you if you could hug me, but I heard you all talking about me. You were saying to the Colonel that you did not want me to go back out on the battlefield. Howard seemed to be a neutral party on the decision, Agent Carter was on your side, but Colonel Phillips was arguing that I had to go back out again for the last battle against the Red Skull."

"And when did you stop listening in?"

"The second that Colonel Phillips suggested electro shock therapy for me. I went back to my room and immediately decided that I had to be brave again for the last battle. That's why the next day I made that big speech in front of everyone during the war council that I wasn't crazy…"

Steve nodded in understanding to her thought process. That certainly explained a lot about how she suddenly snapped out of her depression seemingly overnight back then.

"Jamie, you only heard half of that conversation," he told her seriously. "This is a prime example of why eavesdropping is not a good thing to do."

"W-what?"

"The second Phillips suggested electro-shock therapy, Peggy, Howard, and I immediately protested. None of us were going to let something like that happen to you just for therapy purposes. And now knowing what I do now about you being electrocuted like that, I promise you that I will _never_ let that happen again. I swear!"

Jamie just stared at him for a long time. She couldn't believe her ears.

"You… You won't send me to the chair?"

"No. I promise."

"Thank you," she whispered, her eyes filling with happy tears.

Steve gave her a small smile. That was another issue covered, but there were still a few more things that they needed to discuss. Especially what he was going to talk about next. He needed to discuss this with her.

"How about that Hydra guard?" he began delicately.

Jamie tensed.

"I… I didn't mean to…" she said quietly. "I… I was just so mad. Seeing him attack Trent like that, I—"

"I'm not talking about you shooting him," Steve quickly interjected. "In fact, I'm actually relieved that you did that."

"B-but… I broke my motto!" she protested. "I told everyone so many times! I didn't want to kill people!"

"And I told you so many times that it was all right to do so," he deflected. "Normally, you would be right. Killing is wrong. But we were in the middle of a war. It's all right to kill during war. And you were defending yourself and your older brother. There's nothing to feel guilty about. It is all right to kill for self-defense or while defending somebody else. There is nothing to be ashamed of. You did nothing wrong."

Jamie slowly nodded, understanding what he was saying, but still confused as to what he wanted to talk about with that Hydra agent, then.

"But… I don't understand… If you don't want to talk about that, then why are you bringing up the guard?"

Steve did not answer her for a long time. He couldn't just tell her that he needed to talk about her almost attempted rape. She was just a little girl. She didn't know anything at all about sex, much less rape. And how exactly was he supposed to discuss this with her? Out of all things he was confused about with her not talking to him about, this was the one thing he did not blame her for hiding from him. He could understand that that must have been the last thing she wanted to tell him about, even if she didn't understand why she was reluctant to tell him about it.

"I… I want to talk to you about what he wanted you to do," he said finally, his tone guarded and neutral. "About… him wanting you taking off your dress…"

Jamie froze, and curled up into a tight, defensive ball. She tucked her knees up to her chest, and buried her face into her kneecaps.

"What about it?" she said, her voice a bit muffled.

"Well…" he trailed off. "I'm… concerned about what you might be thinking about that…"

"What did he want to do to me, Steve?" she asked quietly.

Steve bit his lip. He was not about to get into the middle of explaining sex to the little girl. Maybe later on he'd ask Natasha to give an overview about that to her, as well as a brief overview as to what almost happened with that guard, but right now, he needed to just give an edited version about it, and in a way that would not traumatize her, but so that she'd also understand that it was lucky that what almost happened did not end up actually happening.

Jamie took his hesitation the wrong way.

"Should… Should I have just taken off my uniform and let him do whatever he wanted to do to me?" she asked quietly.

Steve's face snapped up.

"Never say that again!"

Jamie flinched a bit upon hearing his fast words and stern tone.

"But—"

"No, Jamie. I do not _ever_ want to hear you repeat that! Don't ever say that! All I can say is that what that Hydra guard wanted to do to you was very, _very_ bad. It's something that should not happen to anyone, regardless of being a prisoner of war or not, and I cannot begin to express that I'm grateful to your brother that he stopped it from happening. Do not ever think that what almost happened in that cell should have happened. Do you understand me?"

His tone left no question about how serious he was for her to understand what he was saying. Jamie quickly nodded.

"Yes, sir."

A long silence spread between them.

"Steve," she asked, not able to bear the silence any longer. "What are the rules to prisoners of war? No one will answer my question. What are the rules?"

Steve sighed. He really didn't know what to tell her. But he had to give an answer. She was desperate to understand her brother's words.

"The rules… the rules are that you're not supposed to hurt prisoners like that," he explained. "You're supposed to treat them humanely. That's why Trent was so mad at those guards. They were hurting you and him. They were not supposed to do that to you two."

"I know why you've left Trent for last," she said. "You just don't want to confirm that I was such a terrible person to leave him back there."

Steve immediately shook his head.

"I do not think that at all, Jamie," he told her.

"But I left him!" Jamie sobbed, dropping Gigi so she could hug Pannie with both arms as she cried. "I left him behind to be killed! I killed him! I killed my big brother!"

"No, you did not," Steve told her firmly. "Jamie I need you to listen to me right now. Put the panda down and look at me."

Jamie slowly set Pannie aside and looked at him from the expanse of the bed with teary eyes.

"Trent's death was in no way your fault. What happened to your older brother was horrible, but it had just been a bad situation. A situation that had been beyond your control. You are not to blame for what happened to him."

"But—"

"Jamie, I want you to repeat after me: I did not kill my brother."

"But—"

"Repeat it, Jamie."

"I…. I-I-I did n-not kill my b-brother…"

"Again. Don't stutter when you say it."

"I… I did not… kill my brother…"

"Again. Say it like you mean it."

"I… did not kill my brother."

"Again."

"I did not kill my brother."

"That's right. You did not. I don't want to hear you think otherwise on that from now on, okay?"

Jamie nodded, and then burst into tears as she crawled out from under the bed and hugged Steve tightly.

"Thank you, Steve," she sobbed.

Steve hugged her back, and then addressed the final issue that they still needed to talk about.

"I… I also owe you an apology about one last thing," he said slowly. "I… I really am sorry about your birthday."

Jamie immediately jerked herself out of his grip and crawled under the bed for a moment to retrieve her toys before crawling back out from under the bed and slumping down on the bed and hugging Pannie and Gigi tightly to her chest, not daring to meet Steve's eyes. With everything that they'd been talking about, she'd forgotten that she was supposed to still be mad at her mentor. She was entitled to be mad. After all, at the end of the day, she meant nothing to him other than simply being his sidekick. And if she meant so little to him, of course her skipped birthday meant nothing to him, too.

Steve frowned as he moved to sit down next to her on the bed. This was probably going to be the hardest part of this conversation. Apologizing to her for making her feel that she did not matter at all to him.

"Jamie, I'm really sorry about your birthday," he told her. "It was stupid of me to not bring it up, and I don't blame you for being mad at me. But at the end of the day, I have to tell you that you are very wrong about thinking that I do not care about you."

"No, you don't," she growled, hugging her toys tightly and still refusing to meet his gaze. "I told you all five of my reasons for thinking that you don't care about me. If you want me to think otherwise about them, you're going to have to refute every single one of my claims. Starting with my birthday! Why did you forget it?! I told you on two different occasions that it was in April! But you never once brought it up! You never even read my file thoroughly to see that it was skipped from the date's of our unfreezing!"

Steve sighed. He couldn't just tell her that he assumed that her birthday wouldn't matter that much to her because he saw that it was skipped and that she was going to stay ten-years-old for another year. That would just make matters worse.

"I… I was an idiot," he said finally. "I give you full permission to yell and scream at me as much as you want about it, because I deserve it. It was wrong of me to never bring it up. I am very sorry, J.J."

Jamie regarded his sincere expression for a moment, before finally nodding. She didn't necessarily forgive her mentor for forgetting her skipped birthday quite yet, but she did acknowledge the apology.

"You yell at me, though," she retorted. "You've yelled at me a lot. If you cared about me, you wouldn't yell."

"I… I'm sorry I've been so short with you lately," he said slowly. "I promise, from now on, I will try not to yell so much."

Jamie nodded. "And what about you always ordering me around even while not on the battlefield? 'Jamie, go over there. Jamie, stay away from that. Jamie, stay quiet.' Why are you always ordering me around?"

"There's certain things that I do not want you exposed to in adult conversations," Steve told her calmly. "I didn't think I was ordering you around. Why do you think that?"

"Because Tony said that. Back on the Quinjet. Remember?"

Steve pressed his lips together in a tight line. He'd have to remember to pull that egotistical man aside later and yell at him for putting that idea in his protégé's head.

"Stark was just being a smart-aleck," he told her. "He didn't mean to put that idea in your head, okay?"

Jamie reluctantly nodded.

"Well, what about the fact that you never asked me about any of this stuff until now?" she asked. "And why did you force me to tell you about it all in front of the others? I didn't want to tell you about anything back then, and certainly not while in front of them…"

Steve had the decency to look guilty at that.

"I didn't want to force you to tell me if you weren't ready to back in '45," he told her. "I knew you were traumatized after the ordeal, and I didn't want to make you relive it right then. As for making you tell me now… I was upset. Very upset, and not thinking straight when I forced you to tell me. Everyone was telling me that you were talking to them about your problems and not me, and I was angry about that. Seeing you telling Loki about the electric chair… it was the last straw. I'm sorry that I forced you to tell me as well as them. I'm sorry."

"Oh."

"I want to make it clear to you, Jamie, that from now on, you don't go to the others with your problems. I'm your mentor. You come to me. Not anyone else. Me. You. Come. To. Me. Is that clear?"

"Yes."

Jamie shifted her toys for a moment before addressing the fifth issue.

"How about the fact that you never cared to try rescuing me back when I was captured?" she asked

"That's actually one of my questions. What possessed you to think that I and the rest of the United States Army were not looking for you and Trent back when you were both captured? The entire army was in an uproar trying to find you guys, after all."

"You… You really _were_ looking?"

"What makes you think we weren't?"

"I… I never really considered that you weren't looking for me until the other night," she said. "Loki told me that—"

"Wait a minute. Back up," Steve interrupted. _"Loki_ put that idea into your head?"

"Yeah," she said, nodding a bit in confirmation. "When Thor accidentally took me with him off the Quinjet and he and Tony started fighting. He told me that it was interesting that you didn't come to rescue me right away. That it was obvious that you didn't care enough about me to come and get me before going to stop the fight. That gave me the idea that you didn't even want to rescue me back when I was kidnapped."

"That is not true at all," he immediately told her. "Loki lied to you. I did not sleep for over twenty-four hours when you were gone back in '45. I was worried sick! And the _only_ reason I did not go to get you right away from that mountaintop was because I didn't know where you were. I had to stop the fight and get Thor to take me to you. Had I known where you were, I would've gone to get you first. I swear."

"He… He lied?" Jamie asked, blinking a bit in surprise. "Loki lied to me?"

Steve nodded.

Jamie immediately scowled, her fists clenched up in tight fists. A newfound wave of hate rolled through her upon learning of this deceit. She would make that bastard pay for adding on to her beliefs that Steve did not care about her.

"That monster…! He's going to pay for tricking me like that!"

"He's on his way to New York for the final battle," Steve told her. "We need to go and stop him. Can you forgive for everything and be my protégé again, J.J.?"

"I don't forgive you about my birthday," she said at once. "That's… you're going to have to work hard to get me to forgive you about that, but I do forgive you about the rest. I can be your sidekick Liberty Belle again if you'll accept that compromise."

"Fair enough," he told her. "When this is all over and done with, I promise I will make up your birthday to you."

"You better."

Jamie hugged him one last time before hopping of the bed, and collecting her torch off a nearby side table, and her hoverboard leaning up against one of the walls. She strapped her torch into its special holster on her side, and nodded to her mentor.

"Let's go," she said.

They exited the med-bay, and nodded to Natasha and Clint who'd obviously been waiting for them to finish their discussion. They headed over to the armory. Jamie already had her torch and her hoverboard, so she just had to put her blue mask back on and was all set to go, but Steve had to retrieve his shield and put back on his blue cowl with the letter 'A' stamped across it, and Natasha and Clint had to gather their own weapons, too. Natasha reequipped her Black Widow's Bite electroshock bracelets to her wrists and knuckles and gathered a few choice guns into the holsters on her hips, and Clint had to retrieve his collapsible bow, his special quiver, and his various types of mechanized arrows.

As soon as everyone was ready, they met up with Tony, who was already in his Iron Man suit again, and they all headed over to hanger where the Quinjet's were stored. One was open and ready for takeoff, and there was only a single S.H.I.E.L.D. agent inside, simply checking over the engines to make sure that it hadn't been damaged during the attack on the Helicarrier. While Tony flew ahead of them to get to New York and possibly stop the attack before it could even start on his new tower, Steve, Jamie, Clint, and Natasha all entered the Quinjet.

The S.H.I.E.L.D. agent looked up when they entered the plane.

"Hey," he said. "You guys aren't authorized to be in here."

"Son," Steve interrupted, his tone leaving no room for argument. "Just don't."

The agent slowly nodded. Even though his job stated that he needed to stop them from stealing this Quinjet, all four of the people in front of him, including the kid, could easily snap him in half if they wanted to. He quickly backed out of the plane without another word.

Clint and Natasha quickly climbed into the cockpit, and strapped themselves into the pilot's seats as Steve and Jamie belted themselves into the passenger seats in the back. As Clint and Natasha powered up the plane and began lifting up and off of the launch deck of the Helicarrier, Jamie set her hoverboard down on her lap and glared stonily at the air in front of her. She was furious with Loki. He had not only lied to her, he had killed Phil Coulson, and was going to kill half of the people in New York City. New York was her hometown, even if she still wasn't used to the modern version of it. She would fight him herself. She wanted a few decent licks of her own on that demi God when it came to fighting him personally.

Steve saw her angry expression, and gently patted her shoulder. Jamie looked up at him.

"We'll make him pay," he told his young apprentice. "He won't get away with this. Any of this. We'll make him pay."

Jamie firmly nodded in agreement.

"Yes, we will!" she said eagerly. "That Norse God and his alien army don't stand a chance against us Avengers!"


	6. The Avengers Assemble

**Again, I know that it took me a little over a week to write this, but this chapter was hard for me to write because it's almost all action, and combined with the fact that action takes me a long time for me to write accurately and with the fact that I've had things to do in my life this past week, it took me a while. I'm sorry that I made all of you wait, but here it is: The Battle of New York Part 1!**

 **This is only the first half of the epic battle between the Avengers versus Loki and the Chitaurian army. The rest of the battle will be in the next chapter. I had been planning to put the entire fight in this chapter, but the word count was getting long, so I decided split it in half, and I think I found a decent place to pause the story. Stay tuned to see the rest of the fight in Chapter 7!**

 **As always, let me stop and thank my reviewers:**

 **\- ZabuzasGirl**

 **\- Judy. Laura .L (Guest)**

 **I only had two reviews for the last chapter. That makes me so sad :( ... Please, my dear readers, be nice when you're done reading and review. Pretty please? I love reviews! It makes me so happy to see what everyone thinks of my story, but the only way I can know what you're all thinking is if you will be kind enough to write something in the review box at the bottom of the page. So please review!**

 **Happy Reading!**

* * *

 **Chapter Six: The Avengers Assemble**

As the Quinjet sped at top speed through the air to reach New York in time, Jamie kept her grip on her hoverboard tight and firm. Aside from being angry with Loki, she was also nervous about this fight. Thor had said that Loki had an army from a world not even known to Asgardians. They were going to be facing up against an alien race. They didn't what these Chitaurians could do, or what they even looked like. Were they as tiny as humans, or as gigantic as skyscrapers? She might be the youngest Avenger on this team, but she was still a bit afraid. At the end of the day, she was still only a child.

Steve seemed to guess what she was thinking, and gently patted her shoulder. She glanced up at him.

"Captain?"

"Hey Jamie, listen, there's nothing—"

"It's Liberty Belle while I'm in costume, sir!"

Steve smiled. It was good to hear her being her normal self again.

"Liberty Belle, then," he corrected. "Liberty, there's nothing to fear. We're going to win."

"Oh, I know," Jamie replied. "I'm just worried about what these Chitaurians can do. We know nothing about them, after all. What if they're bigger than skyscrapers? It'll take an army of four times our number to stop them!"

"Don't worry yourself about that, kid," called out Clint from the cockpit. "It doesn't matter whether or not we know anything about them. If I see anything slightly out of the ordinary, I'm just shooting it. Size doesn't matter."

"That's right, Libby," said Natasha with a chuckle beside him. "We can do it."

"As a team," Steve added, patting her shoulder again.

Jamie smiled. She might be going into what could very well be a suicide battle against a Norse demi-God and an alien army equipped with nothing but a vibranium torch that spat out fireballs and a skateboard-turned-into-a-hoverboard made by the famed inventor and superhero Tony Stark otherwise known as Iron Man, but she truly never before felt luckier than she did right then.

She was Captain American's sidekick.

She was the world's youngest superhero.

She was a member of this team.

She was the youngest Avenger.

She was a member of a family once again.

She didn't want to say anything about that last thought quite yet. She didn't want to distract anybody with what she was thinking. When this was all over though, that would be another story all together. It didn't matter if what she was thinking of right now shocked everyone again, because it would be a good shock this time. She had a new family, and she'd tell everyone that she thought of them as her family once they won this last battle.

Especially Steve.

She now knew what she thought of him as.

She had to tell him soon.

Not right now, though, unfortunately.

They all needed to stay focused.

Especially since Tony was sending a transmission to the Quinjet.

" _I'm approximately a minute and a half away from New York,"_ Tony's snarky voice called out from the intercom system. _"What's your status, slowpokes?"_

"We'll be there in around ten minutes. Can you make a delay?" Natasha asked.

" _Gladly."_

And with that, Tony broke out again from the radio and everyone could only assume that he was speeding up to the metropolis.

"Better hurry," Steve called out to Natasha and Clint. "God only knows what Stark's going to do."

* * *

Tony zipped over the many sleek, steel skyscrapers that made up the downtown area of Manhattan. He wasn't going to wait around for the others to show up before making his move. They had told him to buy them some time until they got there with Loki, and it was technically his tower that was being attacked. He was more than happy to intimidate that Norse demi-God. Maybe even if he stalled long enough, Thor and Bruce would show up, too.

And besides, the suit he was wearing had taken an awful beating during the attack on the Helicarrier. He had to stall Loki long enough for him to change out of this current Iron Man suit and instead have J.A.R.V.I.S. prepare one of the newer suit models. The Mark 7 hadn't really been tested yet for fieldwork, but it was currently the only other suit in the tower, and he couldn't wear the one he was wearing now in an upcoming battle of what would surely be a very long, very hard fight. He was slipping through the air every few seconds because one of the thrusters in the feet of the suit had been damaged during the time he'd been trapped in the propeller blades in the tower, and the suit wouldn't hold up very long against any direct attacks. The only chance he had in this battle was to distract Loki long enough to have the other suit ready for deployment.

As he approached Stark Tower, the animatronic voice of his artificial intelligent personal butler spoke into his ear.

" _Sir,"_ said J.A.R.V.I.S. _"I've turned off the arc reactor but the device is already self-sustaining."_

Tony made no acknowledgement of having heard the A.I.'s words. He had finally reached the tower. Standing upon one of the upper balconies was Thor's good friend Doctor Erik Selvig. He was standing in front of a computer screen, and was typing into it furiously, as it was connected to a rather large device a few feet away. Inside the device was the mystical blue cube of Norse legends and used to power the weapons Nazi deep science division known as Hydra had created back in World War II when Captain America and Liberty Belle had first been genetically altered. The Tesseract. It was crackling with energy and spinning around in levitation from whatever the device was doing to it. Selvig, still under Loki's mind control, was looking especially eager to use it to open up the portal to the Chitauri realm as he continued working on the laptop.

Since Selvig's actions were being controlled, what he was doing was not his fault, but Tony couldn't just allow him to keep that machine running and open the portal. He had to stop him.

"Shut it down, Doctor Selvig," he ordered the university professor of astrophysics through the helmet of his ruined suit.

Upon hearing his words, Selvig spun around to look up at him, and Tony caught sight of the blue energy surrounding his eyes. It was similar to how Clint's eyes looked when he was also being controlled by the magic in Loki's scepter. There was the living proof that Selvig was technically innocent in what he'd done by building this machine.

"It's too late!" he shouted up at Tony. He gestured behind him toward the Cube, and began circling the machine excitedly as he continued. "She can't stop now. She wants to show us something! A new universe."

Tony sighed. He didn't want to hurt Selvig, but he had to destroy the machine, with or without the astrophysicists' help. He activated the repulsor beams in his hands.

"Okay," he muttered, and blasted the bolts of energy right at the device.

To Tony's surprise, the device suddenly shielded itself with a great force field of blue energy, and then ricocheted off the machine. Tony got the brunt of the attack, and went reeling through the air for a few moments as he tried to stop the dizzying whirling, but Selvig was also hurt. Despite not having been the one to try to attack the Cube, he'd been standing right next to it when Tony tried to destroy, and he accidentally was hit by the energy when it rebounded back to Tony. He was thrown off of his feet, and upon landing almost two yards away, he whacked his head on an electrical box, effectively knocking him out cold.

Far down below on the streets of the city, innocent civilians looked up from whatever they were doing in alarm upon hearing the small shockwave, and they all gasped upon seeing Tony fly backwards a bit. Tony paid them no mind. He was looking back down below at another balcony on the tower at Loki, who was simply gazing up at him with a smirk. He had somehow managed to snag his scepter back apparently during the Battle on the Helicarrier. Plus, J.A.R.V.I.S. was speaking again in his helmet.

" _The barrier is pure energy. It's unbreachable."_

"Yeah, I got that," Tony absentmindedly replied, his eyes still trained on Loki. Loki's smirk only grew, and then he turned on his heel, and entered the tower. "Plan B," he said into the headset.

" _Sir, the Mark 7 is not ready for deployment,"_ J.A.R.V.I.S. protested as Tony flew over to the landing pad outside.

"Then skip the spinning rims. We're on the clock."

As Tony landed, the machinery built into the landing pad on the exterior of the tower began circling him as he walked toward the entryway into the tower, and Tony didn't even look fazed as the machinery began tugging his currently battered Iron Man suit off his body. He just had to keep Loki talking long enough for the Mark 7 to power up from down in the basement.

He took no less than a couple steps inside his tower before Loki began scoffing upon seeing him on one of the upper balconies of the main room without his mechanized armor.

"Please tell me you're going to appeal to my humanity," he jeered.

Tony just rolled his eyes as he paused and stared down at the demi-God.

"Actually, I'm planning to threaten you," he said.

"You should have left your armor on for that."

"Yeah," Tony admitted with a shrug as he strolled down the stairs toward the fully stocked bar in the corner of the room. "It's seen a bit of mileage, and you've got the glow stick of destiny…" He gestured toward Loki's scepter. Loki's smirk only grew as he glanced down at it for a moment before turning his attention back up at genius inventor. "Would you like a drink?" Tony went on.

Loki ignored the question. "Stalling me won't change anything."

"No, no. Threatening," Tony corrected, moving behind the bar and taking out a large bottle of scotch. "No drink? Are you sure? I'm having one."

As Tony took out a small glass and began fixing a drink, Loki rolled his eyes, and strolled over toward the large, ceiling high windows that stretched out all across the back wall.

"The Chitauri are coming," he boasted. "Nothing will change that. What have I to fear?"

"The Avengers," Tony replied, hardly even glancing up at the Norse God of Mischief as he began pouring the liquid into the glass. Upon seeing the small, barely even noticeable crease in Loki's brow, he continued. "That's what we call ourselves. We're sort of like a team. 'Earth's Mightiest Heroes' –type of thing."

Loki just sneered. "Yes, I've met them."

Tony only smirked back, and as he began answering Loki, he slipped a pair of bracelets for the new suit onto his wrists, the high counters of the bar shielding his actions from Loki's line of sight.

"Yeah. It takes us a while to get any traction, I'll give you that one. But let's do a head count, here. Your brother, the demi-God…"

* * *

Thor was racing through the air with his hammer, his red cloak billowing out behind him as he zoomed through the clouds.

Upon escaping the prison cell that had once entrapped his adoptive brother when being sucked out of the Helicarrier, he had crash landed in a field of flowers several miles away from civilization. It had taken him a while to relocate Mjolnir, but now that he had retrieved it, he was flying as fast as he could to the mortal city known as New York.

He would stop Loki.

He would not allow his adoptive brother to harm the people of the world he had come to cherish.

* * *

"A super-soldier. A living legend who kind of lives up to the legend…"

* * *

Steve Rogers was completely stone-faced as the Quinjet flew through the air. He was avoiding eye contact with everyone on board, including Jamie.

It wasn't that he was still angry with her. He was simply running through possible scenarios that they might all run into upon arriving in New York. He was a United States Army Captain. He knew how to strategize. He would probably be taking up the leadership role during this battle simply because he knew how to direct others during a fight due to being the leader of the Howling Commandos almost seventy years ago.

He was Captain America.

He fought for justice.

He would stop Loki no matter what.

* * *

"A man with breathtaking anger-management issues…"

* * *

Bruce Banner was hurrying through traffic on his loaned motorcycle. He was doing his best to remain calm.

He didn't remember much about what happened after he transformed into the Hulk on Helicarrier. It was all a bit of a blur. He remembered vaguely chasing after Natasha and Jamie through one of the maintenance tunnels, and then fighting Thor for a while before being shot at by a pilot in one of the Quinjet's. He remembered being furious with the annoyance of the bullets hitting his skin, and rushing out the shattered window on the Helicarrier to tackle the Quinjet in midair. He had no recollection of what had happened to the pilot, but he remembered falling through the air afterwards after the Quinjet exploded.

He must have blacked out after landing on the ground, because he was soon shaken awake by a security guard at an abandoned factory on the outskirts of the city. The man had asked him curiously if he was an alien, which Bruce had quickly denied. The man shrugged at the knowledge before kindly offering the scientist a pair of clothes, as his old ones had been torn from his body after transforming, and even gave him the keys to his motorcycle.

Bruce was grateful to the guard, because he had to get to New York as soon as possible.

As much as he hated to admit it, he had to stop running away from his problems.

He had to become the Hulk again.

He had to be a part of this war.

He had to stop Loki from hurting anyone else.

* * *

"A couple of master assassins…"

* * *

Clint Barton and Natasha Romanoff were both absolutely silent as they piloted the Quinjet, speaking only when necessary to instruct the other on steering the plane in another direction or to flick a particular switch.

Clint was furious as he flew the plane. He couldn't believe everything he'd been forced to do while under Loki's mind control. He'd helped blow up the top-secret S.H.I.E.L.D. base when this whole mess started, he'd killed many innocent civilians while being forced to steal many key parts to building this machine over the past few days, and he'd killed many S.H.I.E.L.D. agents during the Battle of the Helicarrier.

Natasha was determined. She wasn't generally a soldier in fights like these. She was simply a top-class spy, and occasionally, a master assassin. But this fight was an exception for her. She would not just stand by today and let other people take care of this when she had the power to help in this battle. Especially since Clint was going. He was her best friend. A friend that had been manipulated by that bastard Loki with his stupid scepter.

They would stop Loki.

They might not have super-powers or special suits of armor, but they could still give that arrogant Norse God a beating he would not soon forget.

* * *

"And then we've got the living legend's sweet and innocent little sidekick…"

* * *

Jamie kept her grip on her hoverboard on her lap very firm as she sat beside Steve on the Quinjet.

She was oblivious to the world as her thoughts swirled around the fact that she'd been deceived by Loki. How could she have been so stupid as to believe his words that Steve would never had tried to look for her before? Granted, she'd been a bit of an emotional mess when she spoke the demi-God both times she'd been alone with him, but how could she have allowed him to manipulate her like that? She was smarter than that. Much, much smarter. There would be no forgiveness for this trickery.

She would make Loki pay.

She would not only stop him from taking over the Earth with his Chitauri army.

She would get her revenge.

* * *

"And you, big fella," Tony finished, smirking at Loki as he finished naming off the others on the team, "you've managed to piss off every single one of them."

"That was the plan," Loki answered, sounding more than happy to admit that.

Tony collected his drink, and then strolled back around the bar to get closer to the God of Mischief. "Not a great plan. When they come, and they will, they'll come for you."

Loki's face went stony. He was getting annoyed, now.

"I have an army."

"We have a Hulk."

"I thought the beast had wandered off."

Tony rolled his eyes as he walked a bit closer to Loki. "You're missing the point. There is no throne. There is no version of this where you come out on top. Now, maybe your army comes and maybe it's too much for us, but it's all on you. Because if we can't protect the Earth, you can be damn well sure we'll avenge it."

As he took a sip of his drink, Loki's face darkened even more, and he closed the distance between himself and the multi-billionaire.

"How will your friends have time for me when they are so busy fighting you?"

And without another word, he lifted his magic scepter, and touched the tip of it against Tony's chest in order to put the super hero known as Iron Man under his mind control.

Ping.

There was a soft clang when the pointy end of the scepter brushed up against the metal of the arc reactor embedded in Tony's chest. That arc reactor was the only thing preventing Tony from becoming Loki's puppet.

Loki stared, confused out of his mind as his smirk fell from his face. Why wasn't the scepter working? It had always worked in the past. And what was that metallic sound? He tried again, this time thrusting the scepter upon the inventor's chest a tad bit harder so as to make the magic work. Again, nothing happened other than a small metallic sound resounding.

"This usually works…" he muttered to himself.

Tony couldn't stop himself. He saw an opening to be his usual snarky self, and he took it. He didn't care that his words would most likely upset the Norse God. He just wanted to be a smartass again.

"Well, performance issues, it's not uncommon…" he jeered, ignoring the sudden dark look in the demi-God's face. "One out of five—"

He was cut off by Loki suddenly seizing his throat by his free hand, and keeping it there for several seconds. The alcoholic beverage he'd been drinking slipped through his fingers from the shock of this, and the glass broke apart on the ground as the fluid spilled all over the carpeting. Before he could do more than a grunt a bit from the shock of suddenly being choked, Loki tossed Tony aside across the room towards the windows. He landed on his side, and slid a bit across the floor. He coughed a bit to regain his breath.

"J.A.R.V.I.S., anytime now," he croaked, noticing Loki approaching him as he got back up again.

As soon as he was on his feet again, Loki grabbed him by his throat again. He ignored Tony's desperate gasps for breath.

"You will all fall before me," he hissed.

Tony ignored him. He was staring in the direction of the elevator. "Deploy! Deploy!" he shouted as hard as he could despite the fingers clasped tightly around his windpipe.

As the elevator doors slowly opened, Loki had finally had enough, he reeled back with Tony still in his hand, and threw the inventor right toward one of the large windows right beside him. There was a great shattering of glass as Tony was thrown out of the tower. As he fell alongside many flying shards, he screamed in fear, but he also waited. His new suit would be coming along anytime, now.

Sure enough, seconds later, the newest model of his Iron Man suit, the Mark 7, began flying out of another window after him. As is sped to catch up to its creator, two small signal beams traced the machinery in the bracelets Tony had slipped on while at the bar as he fixed his drink. Recognizing it, the suit of armor began folding its way onto Tony's falling body. He spread out his limbs despite the wind rushing past his descending form so that the suit could lock onto him even faster. He was getting a tad bit concerned. He was approaching the sidewalk rather fast. Would the suit get onto him fast enough? There were pedestrians on the streets that were already trying to scramble to get out of the way in case the suit didn't get onto him in time and he instead splattered across the pavement.

Thankfully, the last of the new armor enclosed around his body, and the helmet snapped onto his head, allowing Tony to see through the digital cameras situated on the eyeholes of the suit. With the suit finally ready to go, Tony barely had enough time to activate the thrusters in his feet so as to keep from crash landing on the ground. The crowd below gasped, and those who had either been ducking to avoid looking at him or running away to avoid getting hit immediately looked up in awe as the famed Iron Man managed to stop his descent no less than a few feet off the ground, and instead shot straight back up like a bullet back in the air, heading back towards the floor where Loki had thrown him out of.

Loki glared hatefully at the mechanized hero as Tony hovered in the air before him in front of the shattered remains of the tall windows.

"And there's one other person you pissed off," Tony spat, his words sounding hollow from underneath the helmet of his armor. "His name was Phil."

Loki didn't care. He felt no remorse for the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent he had personally killed while entrapping his adoptive brother inside the cell he himself had been thrown into. He attempted to raise his scepter and blast Tony, but Tony beat him to the punch. He quickly fired a beam of energy from his hands at him. Loki groaned as he was thrown backwards several yards.

Tony was about to fire a few more repulsor beams at the demi-God, but at that moment, the device that was being powered by the Tesseract let off a great stream of energy straight up into the sky, touching the clouds high above. Tony looked up as a great circular black portal opened in the sky in the exact center of the beam. It almost looked as though the portal was creating a doorway to another end of the universe, because the night sky and stars were visible through the exposed doorway to space, and great clusters of red and purple nebulas glittered a bit in the starlight. Tony did not focus on the view of the night sky in the gateway, though. The fact that there were great clusters of black aliens in strange, metallic space armor zooming out of the portal on some type of mini flying vehicles and carrying alien technology of energy-based rifles and spears in their hands and zipping down toward the many skyscrapers in the city had taken the focus of his attention to them.

The Chitauri invasion was beginning.

"Right," Tony muttered, still not sparing Loki a glance and was instead looking up at the Chitauri aliens. "Army."

He shot up into the sky to battle against them. The aliens screeched in annoyance upon seeing something approach them, and they all began firing off beams of energy from their space rifles and spears. Tony easily dodged the attacks, and countered them by firing off repulsor rays from his mechanized hands. His attacks would cause great explosions whenever they managed to strike the Chitauri warriors, and they and their space technology that allowed them to fly would erupt into flames in the air. Tony activated the smart mini-guns hidden in his shoulders. Each one of the miniature bullets zoomed out of his suit and launched themselves at one of the invading aliens. The air burst into flames as more of the Chitauri and their flying machines exploded.

* * *

Down on the streets of the city, New Yorkers stopped what they were doing and stared and pointed up at the sky in both amazement and confusion. People were even climbing out of their cars so as to get a better look. What was going on? They could see Iron Man was up there, but they had no idea what the other flying things were, or what that portal was. Was this some type of weapon testing Tony Stark was doing? They wouldn't put it past the billionaire. He was always doing weird stunts with his Iron Man technology. If that was the case, they weren't sure if they liked it. This wasn't like his general mansion in Malibu where he had plenty of acres of his own land to test his new technology without fear of repercussions. This was one of the major metropolises in the entire country. If something happened while that technology was being tested here, innocent civilian lives could be at risk. Their lives.

Somehow, though, people had an uneasy feeling that even though they were hoping that this was the case, it was most likely not. They had a sinking feeling that everyone in all of New York was suddenly in great peril.

Their fears were unfortunately confirmed. Although Tony was trying to keep too many of the Chitauri warriors from straying too far from the portal, a great number of them managed to get through his defenses. They zipped down toward the great American City, and began firing off great beams of energy at anything they could see. Streets, cars, people… It did not matter to them what it was they were attacking. They were just attacking aimlessly. The sooner they finished the assault on this city that the Asgardian had opened the portal from their realm upon, the sooner they could move onto another place on the planet Earth. And sooner that they did that, the sooner they could gift their master with the awe striking power of the Tesseract.

The crowd of civilians screamed in fear as they scrambled as fast as they could to get away from the blasts of energy the aliens were releasing. Those that were in the middle of the streets had to run as fast as they could to get away from cars that were exploding as they were overturned in midair. Flames and smoke filled their vision, and as windshields, rearview windows, and passenger windows shattered upon impact of the cars overturning, people had to shield their faces with their hands and arms to avoid sharp shards of flying glass.

It was total panic. People that had families with them either grabbed one of their spouse's hands or scooped up their children before tearing off wildly down the streets to find some form of shelter. People who had no one of importance with them shoved others in their path out of their way as they sprinted away from all the devastation. Occasionally, some kind soul would offer assistance to someone who was trapped or scared and panicking, and take hold of their hand before dragging them along behind them to get to safety, but those people were far and in between.

Police cars arrived on the scene, and many police officers dressed up in the standard black uniform hurried to rush out from the front seats, but as soon as they saw what was going on, they completely froze up. Not only was an alien invasion above their pay grade, they had never been trained at the police academy for defending the civilian population against something like this. Stopping terrorist attacks like 9/11? No problem. Taking down evil space invading aliens called the Chitauri? They were shitting their pants. They didn't have the slightest idea on what to do. They just stared up in horror at what was happening in the Big Apple.

No one wanted to be the one to help another soul at the cost of their own life in something like this.

They were just simple New Yorkers.

Just ordinary people.

They weren't superheroes.

Let someone else sort this mess out.

They just wanted to live through this and see tomorrow.

Down at a small, not so special café on a not so special corner of the city, the pretty blonde waitress Beth was screaming as she ducked down behind one of the outdoor tables to avoid a laser beam that shot forth nearby. It did not hit her, thankfully, but it still came much too close for her liking. Smoke and flames swirled in the air around her head. She was really regretting having decided to pick up an extra shift today. She thought by working overtime today, she'd have more than enough money to cover the rent for her apartment, and perhaps maybe even have enough left over to buy that cute dress she spied in the window of her favorite store a few blocks away. Right now, though, she was scared out of her mind. The ground was shaking beneath her feet. She did not want to die.

As soon as the smoky air cleared and the shaking in the ground subsided somewhat, she, a few of her co-workers, and a couple of café patrons as well as a number of other civilians began darting towards the entrance to the coffee shop. It didn't matter that the shop wasn't the perfect form of cover, but it least there were heavy bricks between them and all the chaos going on outside. It would prolong any immediate death, at the very least.

Beth forced her way through the crowd in the shop, and shoved her way up to the front windows. She pressed both her palms onto the glass as she stared outside in horror. The alien invasion was now moving beyond attacking just people and cars on the streets. Now the Chitauri were firing off their energy guns at the skyscrapers. The buildings were engulfed in a great cluster of flames and thick gray smoke as great heaps of concrete, plaster, and broken windows fell from the sky due to all the damage. Fire was raining from the remnants of the destruction, and when they landed on the sidewalks and streets, they would spread throughout the streets.

It was all absolute pandemonium.

* * *

Far up above the chaos of the city, Loki was strolling back out onto the balcony of the Stark Tower. As he walked back out, his clothes soon transformed into his green and gold battle armor along with the golden horned headpiece. He held his scepter firmly in his hand as he paused at the edge of the balcony. He smirked as he watched the devastation the Chitauri were creating. He reveled in the pleasure of watching the mortal beings scream as they tried to escape from the prospect of death.

Very soon, he would become the ruler of this planet.

It did not matter if the rest of the so-called Avengers came to try and stop the war.

The Chitauri would defeat them.

The Chitauri would destroy the human city of New York in a matter of hours.

By this time tomorrow or the day after, he would be fashioning himself a throne, and demanding that every Earthling on the planet bow down before their new king.

It was all just a matter of time.

There was a harsh thump from somewhere on the balcony below him. He glanced away from the city that had become a battlefield and turned to look down. His adoptive brother had finally arrived. Thor had re-donned his vividly bright red cape during the flight here from wherever he landed after being cast out of the Helicarrier, and his previous armor had been exchanged for a heavier protective set that now included chainmail-like sleeves. He carried his mystical hammer Mjolnir in his hand as he glared up at him.

"Loki!" he shouted in anger. "Turn off the Tesseract, or I'll destroy it!"

Loki sneered. "You can't," he snapped. "There is no stopping it. There is only the war."

Thor shook his head. He and Loki may not be related by flesh and blood, but they were still brothers. It saddened him to know that his only brother had become so twisted from the boy he had played with while growing up on Asgard, but he had no choice but to fight him. Family or not, he could not allow this to continue. He loved the human world known as Earth. It was under his protection. He would not allow his brother to harm its people simply because he was jealous of him. He had no choice but to fight him to protect the planet.

"So be it."

Loki yelled as he leaped off the higher balcony down toward him with his scepter extended, intending to strike him down, but Thor deflected the attack with his hammer. As Loki stumbled backward, Thor tried to smash Mjolnir against his brother's head, but Loki managed to block the attack with the thin part of his staff. The two began to brawl. They would duck down to dodge the other's attacks, and would periodically swing their weapons against one another. Occasionally, Loki would let off a stream of energy from the tip of his scepter, but the magical properties of Mjolnir simply absorbed the attacks with little to no problems. Even though Loki was not as skilled as Thor was at fighting with weapons, as he had instead chose as a child to study the magical arts in the palace library while growing up instead of sword fighting with Thor in his youth, he was holding his own against his weapon master brother.

Loki tried to raise his scepter to fire off a beam of energy at Thor, but Thor deftly swung his hammer straight down, and the scepter fell a bit as the beam cast off. Instead of hitting Thor, it hit the lettering that gave the tower the name 'Stark.' The 'R' and the 'K' disconnected from the rest of the tower, and there was a bright explosion of electrical sparks flying everywhere as the two bold and white letters broke away and fell down several stories to the far away pavement, where they broke apart even more.

* * *

Steve, Jamie, Clint, and Natasha just stared in disbelief at what they were witnessing as the Quinjet rapidly flew up towards downtown Manhattan.

New York City had turned from being a bustling metropolis to being the warfront of an alien invasion. Buildings were on fire and almost hidden completely by thick and gray smoky curtains. People were screaming in horror as they gathered their loved ones and ran to get away from all the energy rays that the Chitauri were blasting off. Cars were overturned completely or were resting on their sides as their insides caught on fire, ready to explode from the fire reaching the gas tanks at any moment. Sirens were wailing from one of the following three cars: police cars, fire trucks, or ambulances. At the center of all the anarchy was the Stark Tower. It, too had fallen under chaos, as everyone on board the plane could see a beam of energy being shot up into the sky where the wormhole to the other dimension that the Chitauri had come from was remaining open. Despite the fact that they were still quite some distance away from the city, they could all see more of the alien forces flying out from the wormhole. They could just barely make out Tony flying down there in a newer, undamaged model of his Iron Man suit. He was trying to shake several of the aliens in their flying vehicles off his tail as he zigzagged over the streets of the city.

If they didn't land the Quinjet soon and get down there, the city would surely fall into the Chitauri's clutches, and Loki's dream of ruling Earth would be one step closer than before.

"Now there's something you don't see everyday…" Jamie muttered, her eyes glued on the horrible vision of her futuristic home city.

"Couldn't have put it better myself, kid," Clint replied, not even looking at her as he responded. He was focused more on piloting the plane.

"Both of you quiet!" Natasha snapped as she flipped a few switches on the control panel. "I'm contacting Stark!"

"Sorry…" Jamie whispered, quickly falling silent.

"Belt yourself in, J.J.," Steve advised her, gesturing toward the seats in the back of the plane. "I have a feeling were going to be in for a rough landing."

"Roger, Captain, but call me Liberty Belle, now!"

As Jamie ran towards the back of the plane and placed her hoverboard on her lap before fastening the seatbelts around her waist, Natasha got the communications up, and quickly tried contacting Tony.

"Stark, we're on your three, headed northeast."

" _What? Did you stop for drive-through?"_ they all heard him ask, but instead of sounding arrogant this time like he usually did, he sounded exasperated. He must already be fighting in his suit at his full strength in order to try keeping the Chitauri warriors at bay. _"Swing up Park. I'm going to lay them out for you."_

Natasha didn't reply, but motioned for Clint to follow after the billionaire. He quickly steered the Quinjet around to follow after Tony and the other Chitaurians that were on his tail. Tony was zipping through the streets as fast as he could to avoid the energy beams the aliens were firing off at him. As soon as she was in position, Natasha clicked a particular large red button on the control panel. The enormous machine gun that she had activated back in Germany while trying to detain Loki the first time emerged from the bottom of the Quinjet.

She aimed and let off a great number of bullets at a few of the Chitaurians on the flying saucers as Clint quickly turned the Quinjet to avoid crashing into a museum, although a number of bullets struck the front entrance of the building when they missed the aliens. Despite being buckled in in the backseat, Jamie saw the front entrance explode via the bullets hitting it, and couldn't help but cringe.

"Hope history really isn't priceless," she mumbled.

"Don't worry about damage costs. Stark will undoubtedly pay for everything," Steve answered her.

"Hopefully," she countered.

Soon, Tony split away from the Quinjet as he spied more of the aliens heading towards another area of the city, and rushed off to take care of them as Clint steered the plane towards Stark Tower while Natasha continued to shoot down more of the Chitaurians whenever she saw them. As they approached the tower, they, Steve, and Jamie all caught sight of the epic brawl still going on between Loki and Thor. Neither of the Norse God's spared the Quinjet a single glance. They just kept on fighting.

"Nat?" Clint asked.

"I see him," Natasha replied.

Clint carefully piloted the Quinjet around so the plane was facing Loki directly in order for Natasha to shoot him. Loki caught wind of this, and with a burst of hidden strength, he managed to get the upper hand on his brother and knock him to the ground. As Thor fell aside, Loki spun around, and aimed the magical blue energy at the top of his scepter at the S.H.I.E.L.D. plane. Natasha tried to fire some bullets at the demi-God, but Loki beat her to the punch. He zapped the Quinjet with some of the mystical blue energy. It struck one of the wings of the plane, and part of the wing caught on fire. Everyone on board was jolted around from the force of the attack, and they barely had enough time to witness Thor scrambling to his feet and rushing towards Loki before the Quinjet spun completely out of control.

As Clint and Natasha tried to straighten out the spinning plane, Steve quickly grabbed the handlebars right above him in order to stay standing and not topple over while Jamie screamed in fear, thanking the heavens that Steve had told her strap herself in earlier as she clutched her hoverboard tightly. She was terrified.

Would Clint and Natasha be able to correct the plane in time?

Would the Quinjet crash to the ground?

Would they all even survive a plane crash?

The questions swirling about in her head only caused her to grow even dizzier when combined with all the twirling the jet was making. She chanced a look over at her mentor. Had he not have grabbed the handlebars the second the plane was struck with the energy beam, he'd already be on the ground. He was already lifted off his feet due to the angle of the Quinjet currently, and was clutching the bars with both with all his might. He grit his teeth in frustration.

No matter what the two master assassins tried, it was useless. The most they could do was try to steer the Quinjet away from whacking into too many buildings as the plane dipped lower and lower as it lost altitude. All across the city, people on the streets or hiding in the safety of buildings looked over in alarm when they saw the unusual plane descend in the city. It didn't appear to be one of the alien vehicles, but at this point, they didn't know what was what anymore. For all they knew, this strange plane could contain another type of these alien forces. They were all terrified of it. As the plane made a rapid descent down into a tiny square in front of a skyscraper, people everywhere darted out of the way. Not only did they not want to deal with more of the Chitauri, they also did not want to be possibly crushed by the plane itself.

When the plane finally hit the white concrete of pavement, sparks, stone, and dust flew up everywhere as the Quinjet skidded along cement, gradually slowing down. Its passengers wobbled about as it slid to a halt. Clint, Natasha, and Jamie were fine since they were all in seatbelts, and the most they felt was their heads jerked back and forth from the sudden stop, but Steve was literally holding onto the handlebars with all of his might so as not to fall and be whacked around inside the plane like a bouncing beach ball. It wasn't until the jet brushed up against one of the skyscrapers in front of them that it came to a complete stop. Clint and Natasha hurried to unbuckle themselves from the front seats and get to their feet again, but Jamie groaned, and removed one of her hands from her hoverboard in order to rub the back of her neck.

"J.J., are you all right?" Steve asked her, slowly lowering himself from the overhead bars and looking over at his young apprentice.

"For the thousandth time, Captain… it's Liberty Belle while in costume," she groaned, not meeting his gaze as she kept rubbing her neck, occasionally turning her head one way and then the other to get rid of the kinks. "And I'm fine… That crash just made my neck sore… I'll be okay…"

To prove her point, she rolled her shoulders back once, unclipped her seatbelt, and kept her hoverboard in her hand as she stood up stiffly. She teetered a bit in place for a moment, but then shook away her double vision and blinked a bit for good measure before placing her board on the ground and stepping onto it. As usual, she stomped once on the back of it, and rose up in the air a couple inches. She hastily grabbed her torch out from its special holster on her hip, and then glanced back up at Steve.

"I'm ready when you guys are, sir," she declared.

Steve nodded, and the two of them joined Clint and Natasha by the exit hatch of the Quinjet. While Jamie and Natasha already had their weapons, as they both kept their vibranium torch and two semi-automatic's in the holsters of their uniforms during the flight, they both had to wait for Steve to collect his shield, and for Clint to strap his quiver with his variety of arrows to his back and then grab his advanced technological bow before they could all leave. As soon as the four of them were all set, Natasha clicked the special button on the sidewall of the jet, and the main exit hatchway swung open.

Steve was the first one out of the Quinjet, and led the way as the other two adults ran after him onto the ruined street, and the only child in the group to zoom along after her mentor directly on his heels. Many New Yorkers stared at the two they knew to be the legendary Dynamic Duo from World War II as they both ran and hovered past them while accompanied by an adult man and adult woman that they did not know of, but the group of superheroes did nothing more but nod to them a bit as they hurried past the civilians. They were too distracted at the moment at the prospect of how to stop the Chitauri invasion to stop and really see the ordinary people beyond the prospect if they were too hurt to move.

"We got to get back up there," Steve yelled over his shoulder at his protégé and the other two in the group as they kept running past frenzied pedestrians and abandoned taxis and buses.

"Do you want me to go and join Iron Man or Thor, Cap?" Jamie shouted, zipping around Steve so she was floating along directly beside him. "Out of all four of us, I'm the only one who can go on ahead right now and help…"

"Not yet, Liberty," Steve replied, shooting his sidekick an absent-minded look as they all hurried along. "I need you down here for right now. We're sticking together for the time being."

"Got it."

As the quartet ran and hovered down a rapidly deserting street, a low groan, sounding almost like some type of machinery, began to resound from up above the city from the portal. The four came to a stop in the middle of the street and looked up toward the sky. To their horror, there was a new type of Chitaurian coming to join the battle. Along with many other smaller, human-sized aliens on their space vehicles, a massive alien was emerging from the wormhole. Massive wasn't even the correct word to describe the beast. Gigantic was more appropriate. It was three times the size of the iconic Empire State Building. It was not human shaped in any way at all. In fact, it looked more like some type of mix between an Earth blue whale and an extinct leviathan from the time that dinosaurs roamed the planet. Although it was technically alive by alien standards, it almost looked like some of machine, what with the way it's scales were all mashed together. With the exception of a few spots of blue here and there that occasionally glowed purple to show that it too could spout out the same blue and purple energy as the rest of the other Chitauri aliens could as well as Loki's scepter, it was a mix of black and gray. There were no eyes on the beast that the group of heroes could see, but its mouth was filled to the brim with razor sharp rows of tall and thin jagged teeth. It was truly a frightening monstrosity.

Its roar was loud and horrible enough to force people to slam their hands over their ears in a fruitless attempt to block out the awful screeching sound. The beast did not care that it was much too large to move comfortably through the streets of the city. It just soared through the air above the ruins of the roads as its massive, snake-like tail and whale-like side fins crushed whatever they touched out of its way as it flew along, doing its part to help the other Chitauri aliens in the invasion.

"Space whale…" Jamie whispered, her eyes unable to look away from the Chitaurian leviathan. "It's… I don't even know how to describe that thing other than calling it a space whale…!"

None of the three adults commented on what she had said. They were too busy staring in shock as the enormous space leviathan as it flew over their heads. As it seemed to slink through the air, more of the human-sized Chitauri aliens leapt from the beasts' back with some types of grappling hooks, and swung through the windows of various skyscrapers to attack the people that had believed they'd be safer staying inside their offices rather than hurrying down towards the streets below were all the destruction was. Screams could be heard even at the bottom of the buildings from the topmost levels as the human beings inside were struck with the energy blasts from the aliens space staffs and rifles.

This was too much for Steve. He needed more backup other than him, Jamie, Clint, and Natasha. There was no way to contact Thor at the moment. He was still battling Loki at the top of the Stark Tower, and he did not have an earpiece, and no one knew where Bruce was, or if he would even get involved in this battle at all. But there was one other person around right now that could help. Even though he found the man to be a downright arrogant prick, he was at least trying to stop these alien bastards from destroying the city. He tapped his earpiece.

"Stark, are you seeing this?"

" _Seeing. Still working on believing,"_ he responded. _"Where's Banner? Has he shown up yet?"_

"Banner?" Steve replied, confused.

Jamie, Clint, and Natasha all exchanged looks of equal surprise upon hearing the question. None of them were really sure if they could count on the mild-mannered scientist for this fight. It would drastically improve their odds in winning if he were to come, but they all knew that Bruce did not want to become the green-skinned monster. He wanted to live an ordinary life, away from the madness of S.H.I.E.L.D. and anything superhero related. But they also knew that the only reason he had even gotten involved in this in at least trying to find the Tesseract was because deep down he really did want to help other people. He had a good heart. He wanted to do good. The question was, how far did that want extend to?

" _Just keep me posted,"_ Tony said, and he disconnected the transmission.

Jamie turned to look up at her mentor. "What do we do, sir?" she yelled in order to be heard over another roar made by the leviathan.

Steve bit his lip. In all honesty, he didn't have the slightest clue in what to do. He was a military captain, but he did not know how to fight an army from outer space. He thought for a second, and then pointed towards a series of abandoned taxis a few yards away.

"I need time to think. We'll duck for cover in the meantime."

She, Clint, and Natasha all nodded in agreement, and the four of them sprinted towards the cover of the yellow taxicabs.

* * *

Back on top of the Stark Tower, Thor had all but dropped his hammer in order to hit Loki with his powerful fists. He was beyond enraged. This madness had gone on long enough. He knew he was bruising his brother's face, but he was too far lost in his rage to care about how much he was hurting his adoptive brother. He needed his Frost Giant sibling to know he had gone too far this time.

It wasn't until Loki began groaning from pain and gasping for breath did Thor stop his assault. He grabbed him firmly by the shoulders with one hand, and then waved the other out to gesture in the direction of all the fiery destruction that the Chitaurians were creating to show him.

"Look at this!" he shouted at Loki. "Look around you! You think this madness will end with your rule?!"

For a long moment, Loki did not make any sort of a reply. He just stared at all the devastation with a neutral expression that did not reveal what he might have been thinking. Thor was about ready to start shouting and punching him again, but then Loki turned back around to look at him, and Thor was shocked to see a remorseful look on his face.

"It's too late," Loki told him. "It's too late to stop it."

Relief. That's what spread throughout Thor's body. Relief. The relief of knowing that Loki, his only brother, had finally seen reason. He could see the error of his ways and wanted to stop it. He had his brother back again. So long as his brother wanted to stop this madness, they had a chance. His father Odin might even lessen the punishment when he brought him back to Asgard so long as Loki was able to convince their father that he was truly sorry for his sins.

"No," Thor assured him. "We can, together."

Loki smiled at him, and Thor smiled back. He was so happy. They were brothers again. They were family. Together, they could stop—

A sudden sharp pain in his side snapped him out of his thoughts, and Thor yelped as he automatically released the grip he had on Loki's shoulders. One hand traveled down his side to feel what had just happened. He felt the grip of a tiny handle. Loki had used his remorse to gain an opening in which to stab him. As Thor fell to his knees to try and relieve himself of the pain somewhat, Loki smirked at him, not feeling any shame at what he had done to his adoptive sibling.

"Sentiment," he hissed.

Thor's hope for his brother had at last ended. He still loved him, to be sure, but now he knew there was nothing that he could say to bring back the brother he had cherished while growing up. He had to fight Loki. It was the only way to protect this mortal Earthian city. With a fierce growl, he shook off the pain of the wound, jumped up to his feet, and launched himself at the other Asgardian.

Loki was mildly surprised. He knew the sneak attack wouldn't keep Thor down for long, but he thought he'd still be out of it for at least a few more seconds. He tried to move out of the way, but Thor was too quick. He kicked Loki through another window leading inside the tower, causing Loki to drop his scepter. Before Loki could do anything other than groan a bit from the force of the attack, Thor was grabbing him again. He held him up high over his body, and then brought Loki down again over his knee before dropping him right at the edge of the tower. If it weren't for the fact that they were demi-God's and they were more resilient than mortal attacks, then that surely would have broken at least a few bones.

For a moment Loki just lied there, and Thor was beginning to think that maybe his brother was too winded from the force of his blows in order to fight back now, but then Loki surprised him. Even though he was a ground-bound God that could not fly, he ignored this fact and rolled himself right over the edge of the Stark Tower. Thor quickly ran to see what had happened. His brother could be seriously injured once he hit the ground, immortal or not. To his rage, his brother was unfortunately fine. He had timed his roll off the tower perfectly in order to land smack into the safety of one of the Chitauri aliens flying vehicles. He was currently getting to his feet, and motioning for the alien in charge to attack elsewhere, and that he'd mind the vehicle. The alien nodded, and jumped off the vehicle and through a window leading into another steel skyscraper. Even though the other man-made building was some distance away, Thor could hear the terrified screams of the people inside despite the length in distance. Loki paid the screams made by the humans no mind. He gestured for some other Chitaurians flying nearby to follow him, and he personally led them all down toward the mayhem happening down on the streets of the city.

With a small growl, Thor grit his teeth to bear with the pain, and then yanked the tiny Asgardian dagger out from his side. He stared at it for a moment in disgust, and then threw it to the side before moving to collect his hammer.

No more playing nice.

He may still love his brother, but his brother was not going to hold back on him just because they were family.

He had to stop him.

* * *

Jamie was off of her hoverboard. She was crouching down beside Clint and Natasha, hiding behind an abandoned yellow taxi while Steve ran off to check out the status on the aliens for a moment. Her hoverboard was on the ground beside her, and she was still clutching her torch. She wanted to do something to help with the invasion, but she was just the sidekick. She didn't make the calls on what to do while during a fight. Steve had instructed her to wait here with Clint and Natasha while he went off for a moment, and that's what she was going to do, even though she felt deep down that she could be doing more. She looked over at Natasha.

"I feel useless, Widow," she told Natasha. "I feel like… like I should be doing something right now."

"Don't think like that," Natasha told her. "The fact that you're here right now says something. Most kids your age would be crying in fear and running away. You are not. You're willing to stay here and fight."

"Nat's right," Clint added, and Jamie turned her masked face to look over at him. "There aren't many kids that would be willing to fight an adult battle. You're a special kid, Liberty."

"Thanks, Black Widow. Thanks, Hawkeye…"

The three of them didn't have a chance to continue speaking, as that moment Steve was rushing for cover behind the taxi to join them in taking cover. Clint looked up at him, and pointed towards a nearby bus with many New York civilians hiding inside. They were too paralyzed with fear to leave the safety of the oversized vehicle.

"We've got civilians trapped up here," Clint explained to adult super-soldier.

Steve nodded in understanding, and opened his mouth to reply to this statement, but a sudden nearby explosion followed by a fast moving object zooming over their heads made them all peek out slightly from around the taxi and direct all four sets of eyes toward the sky. They spied the space vehicle Loki had stolen. He was causing more damage to the city while riding it, blowing up buildings and setting fires to abandoned cars. Pedestrians still in the process of trying to find cover screamed louder than ever when something exploded less then a yard away from where they were standing, and they ran with all their might in the opposite direction of the burning infernos.

"Loki," Steve muttered in disgust. He stared at all the panicked people on the street below where he, his sidekick, and their allied assassins were hiding, and looked extremely worried. "They're fish in a barrel down there."

"What do we do, Captain?" Jamie asked worriedly.

Steve opened his mouth to reply, but a sudden burst of energy from one of the aliens on a flying vehicle aimed right at their heads quickly diverted his attention, and he grabbed Jamie's head and jammed it down as he, Clint, and Natasha all ducked. To their relief, the blast missed them, and instead hit the yellow frame of the taxi behind them.

Natasha wasted no time. She got to her feet, and pulled the two semi-automatics holstered to her hips out from her waist, and fired both guns in rapid succession after the Chitauri alien that had attacked them. Clint was no slouch, either. He tightened his grip on his bow, and crept ahead a few paces toward the cover of another taxi, though this one had been completely overturned. He peeked over sparingly over one of the wheels facing the sky. Beyond the taxi lying on its roof, all three adults and the small child could see many of the invading forces leaping off of the flying space vehicles and landing on the destroyed powdered dust white streets of New York with their alien technology weapons in their hands. They looked more than eager to start a decent fight with the team of heroes.

Natasha ducked down again almost immediately, and as she began refilling her two guns with more bullets, she looked over at Steve and Jamie.

"We got this. It's good. You two go."

"A-are you sure, Widow?" Jamie asked nervously, quickly feeling around for her hoverboard and holding it tight in the hand not clutching her torch. "T-these aren't just r-run of the mill thugs… They're aliens!"

"Positive, L.B.," Natasha assured her. "Both of you go. Get those idiot cops to do their jobs. They're all just standing around, panicking just like everyone else."

Steve looked uncertain. Just because Natasha said it was okay for them to split up did not mean that Clint was thinking the same thing. He glanced over at the master archer. Clint didn't notice his gaze. He was still watching the Chitaurians land on the streets.

"Do you think you can hold them off?" Steve asked.

Clint turned to look at Steve and Jamie over his shoulder, and both of the super-soldiers were surprised to see a more than pleased look on his face. He was smirking.

"Captain, Liberty," he said, clicking a button on his exceptional bow. Whatever it did caused something to happen in the quiver on his back, because one of the arrows shot out from it, ready for him to grab. "It would be my genuine pleasure."

And without another word, in an almost fluid and snakelike motion, Clint seized the arrow from his quiver, swiftly stood up from his hiding place, set the arrow in place in the bow and pulled back the bowstring, and shot the arrow with enough force for it to embed itself deeply in the skull of one of the aliens. The Chitauri alien completely seized up when it was struck right in the face, but then fell limply to the ground, now immobile from the loss of its life.

Its brethren roared upon seeing the mortal human being kill their comrade, and began to charge forth directly at the master archer. As Clint prepared another arrow, Natasha also rose to her feet, and began shooting both of her guns again at the disgusting creatures. As many of them also fell to the ground as a result of her bullets, she turned her head away from staring at them for half-a-second to look over at Steve and Jamie, and nodded her head, silently encouraging them once again to go ahead and help the citizens of the city elsewhere.

Steve nodded, and then turned to Jamie. "Let's go, Libby," he encouraged, rising to his feet.

Jamie nodded, and she all but jumped up and dropped her board to the ground. She quickly jumped onto it and slammed her foot down on the back of the board in order to rise up beside him as she kept her grip on her torch firm and true. As soon as she was ready, she nodded to Steve to tell him she was set to go. Steve nodded in return, and then motioned for her to follow him as he ran to leap over the railing leading down to the street below the one they were currently on. As he dropped down on the roof of an abandoned bus and somersaulted in order to ease the landing, Jamie zipped down over the railing on her hoverboard after him, and that attracted the attention of some of the Chitaurians still in the flying vehicles. They blasted several energy beams after her as they saw her fly after Steve as he leapt off the bus and down onto another car, a silver van to be exact, causing more smoke and flames to erupt after her and her mentor. As Steve felt the van he was on begin to overturn completely into a nosedive from the force of him landing on top of it, he prepared himself to jump back down onto the street as it lifted in the air. The aliens spotted this, and were arranging their energy rifles to fire at him while he steeled himself for the jump, but Jamie spotted this.

She would not let them hurt him.

Steve was her friend.

Her mentor.

Part of her family.

She turned around on her board as she flew after him, raised her torch, and shot off several fireballs in the direction of the Chitaurians. She doubted any of them would actually hit considering she only was shooting them off upon a half-a-second look before she had to turn back forward to make sure she didn't accidentally crash the board into anything as she flew, but she just wanted to get them to stop shooting their guns for a moment while Steve landed. It worked. The aliens stopped firing, and Steve was able to safely land his jump on the black tar of the street, his only concern being that he didn't land hard on some piece of nearby debris. As soon as Jamie zoomed up next to him, he patted his shoulder, just giving her a brief smile before they both took off again down the street.

"Thank you, Libby," he breathed, focusing more on ducking as he ran so as to avoid another ray of energy.

"Thank me when this is all done, Captain," Jamie replied, not even looking over at him, but instead zipping on ahead for a second to bash the blunt end of her torch upon the head of one of the straggling aliens on its own on the street.

It fell to the ground with a loud thump, but Steve and Jamie didn't even look at it. They just continued on.

* * *

Despite the fact that Steve and Jamie were now gone, Clint and Natasha were completely unfazed. It didn't matter that they were now further outnumbered against the invaders. They simply fought their way towards the bus filled with the scared New Yorkers trapped inside. As Natasha fired off rounds with her two guns at the aliens, Clint ran up to the bus. He motioned for the people sitting and ducking down beside one of the windows to get out of the way. They did as he silently instructed, and gathered themselves and any children nearby that were too young and scared to understand what was going away from the window as Clint backed up, and took another arrow out of his quiver. He placed it into position at the side of his bow, and quickly fired.

Everyone inside the bus yelped in fear as the window shattered from the force of the blast, but Clint was completely unfazed. He dropped his bow, scrambled up to the broken window, and began waving his hands, gesturing for them to climb out.

"Everyone, out! Out! Hurry!"

People snapped out of their paralyzed daze of fear, and began rushing toward the window. The first person to reach the window was a young woman with blonde hair. She was terrified, but still allowed herself to be helped safely out of the window by the mysterious archer that had come to their aid. As soon as she was out on the street, Clint pointed toward a set of stairs nearby that led down to the subway stations.

"Head into the subways. Keep off the streets," he instructed her.

Although the woman was still terrified, she nodded upon hearing the instructions, and took off running as fast as she could across the street toward the entrance to the underground tunnels.

Clint stayed at the broken long enough to help another woman pass along with her seven-year-old son to him to help out of the vehicle as well her herself, but then ran towards one of the doors to the bus. Having people climb out the windows was working, but it was taking too long. There was at least twenty other people still trapped on the bus, and although Natasha was one of the best assassins and spies in the world, she couldn't keep covering him long enough to assist every single person out of the bus through that particular window. He needed to make another exit.

He took another arrow out of his quiver, and jammed it into the crevice between the two sliding doors to pry them open. It took almost twenty seconds, but he managed to hear the doors click open. He quickly tossed the arrow back into the quiver, and then grabbed one of the doors with both hands to slide them apart. As soon as they were open, people began dashing out the door, and took off in frenzied runs in every direction.

"Go into the subways! The subways!" Clint would repeatedly yell over the frightened, panicked screams of terror as people continuously escaped the bus through either the doors or the broken window.

People were scared, but they nonetheless listened to the master archer, and ran in the direction of the subways.

As soon as they were all out and running to the stairs that led down to the underground tunnels far beneath the city, Clint seized his bow, and ran over toward Natasha to assist her in providing cover against the aliens so the civilians could reach the tunnels safely.

Upon seeing her best friend move to stand next to her and begin shooting arrows, Natasha stopped shooting her handguns for a moment to give him a quick, cheeky grin.

"Just like Budapest all over again," she joked, fixing her eyes on him for a moment instead of their otherworldly opponents.

Clint rolled his eyes, but did not look at his assassin friend as he pulled yet another arrow from his quiver.

"You and I remember Budapest very differently."

* * *

The New York City Police Department was in way over their heads with the alien forces. They didn't have the slightest clue what in fuck was even going on, or what they should even be doing. They had never encountered anything quite like this before in their lives. There was no proper instructions or rules on what should be done in the police academy handbook on what to do if aliens should come to Earth and start blowing up everything in their path.

That was science fiction crap.

Something nerds at Comic-Con while dressed up in costumes from Star Wars would joke and speculate about as they got drunk with a couple of beers.

Or it had been until now.

All they could really do was stand beside their police cars, raise their pistols toward the sky, and try to shoot down the aliens flying around on their flying space vehicles. Once in a while, one lucky bullet would hit its mark and the alien on board would fall off of the vehicle, but those shots were far and in between.

It was a stone cold slap of truth that the Sergeant in charge was not ashamed to admit, but they were not capable of stopping these monstrous beings.

He didn't know what the hell they were supposed to do to stop this.

Should they keep on trying to fruitlessly shoot down these evil aliens, or should they be focusing more on evacuating the terrified pedestrians that were squatting down behind large pieces of debris or overturned cars in a meager, desperate attempt to hide from the mysterious energy blasts?

What was he supposed to tell the other police cadets to do?

One of the privates he had ordered earlier to go and radio the main police department in the city suddenly came dashing between the other policemen and scrambling between the squad cars straight toward him, intent to tell him the verdict of what he'd been told by the Chief of Police via the CB radios.

"It's going to be an hour before they can scramble the National Guard!" He yelled over the din of noise.

"National Guard?!" the Sergeant repeated, clearly alarmed.

The police private did not get a chance to clarify, as at that moment, one of the aliens jolted out a beam of energy right at their heads. He and the private ducked to avoid it, and it instead struck the white hood of the police car they were standing in front of. A large, charred hole was left behind, sizzling out a great deal of thick smoke. As soon as the Chitauri alien focused its attention elsewhere, the Sergeant turned back to face the police private.

"Does the army even know what's happening here?!" he demanded.

Despite the difference in rank and because he was frustrated about the fact that they were standing in what could very well be compared to a warzone, the private just shrugged his shoulders angrily and threw the Sergeant an annoyed look.

"Do we?!" the private countered

Whatever the Sergeant was planning to reply, the private would never find out, because another thing rather unexpected happened directly in front of them. They both raised their handguns to fire away rapidly, but upon seeing what it was, they both hesitated to pull the triggers.

An adult man dressed in a one-piece ensemble that was almost all in blue aside from its white sleeves landed in a crouched position on one knee on the roof of the squad car in front of them. He had a white five-pointed star on his chest, and across his stomach there were red and white stripes. His red-gloved hands perfectly matched the red boots he was wearing, and in his left hand he carried a rather large, circular shield that was painted in a red, white, and blue stripe pattern with a white five-pointed star in the exact center, matching the one emblazed on the man's chest. He also wore a bright blue cowl with a white letter 'A' stamped on the forehead to disguise his identity.

Another figure appeared. A little girl, to be exact. But she did not jump down onto the roof of the car beside the adult man. She flew down and landed gently on top of it via a red and blue board that oddly resembled a skateboard, but instead appeared to be some type of hoverboard. She wore a rather pretty sleeveless dress, made of the same blue material as the man's, and matched it rather nicely, what with the white five-pointed star on her chest, too. Along the sides of the girls' dress, there were single red stripes, and they neatly went along with the elbow-length red gloves on her hands, and the knee-high red boots on her feet. The dress' pleated skirt was also a bright shade of blue, and it shifted between pleats of being either blue or white. She carried a silver torch in her right hand, and combined with the fact that there was a spiked crown on her head, she looked like some type of modern, child-like version of a Lady Liberty. Like the man, she, too, had a facial covering to keep her identity a secret, but unlike the man, it was not a cowl and there was no letter stamped across it. It was a simple, peel away blue mask that covered the area around her eyes, and part of her nose.

The World War II superhero team, often nicknamed the Dynamic Duo over the course of history, was standing in front of them.

The adult and child super-soldiers.

Captain America, and his young sidekick Liberty Belle.

They had come to help stop the alien invasion.

The police Sergeant and the private weren't really sure what to make of this. They did not fire the guns in their hands, but they did not lower them away from the man and girl, either. They, just like the rest of the world, had heard and had been shocked to discover that the two super-soldier adult and child heroes of legend that had supposedly given their life for their country back in the mid-forties had apparently been discovered frozen alive in some ice glacier in Greenland a couple weeks ago. They had recently been unthawed, but they — the police — were completely unprepared to see them here in New York, ready to take command of this fight for the planet against the Chitaurians. Hell, they weren't even sure if this was even the real Dynamic Duo. For all they know, the fact that they'd apparently been found frozen alive in ice could have very well been a hoax. The costumes they were both wearing looked like some type of variation to the one's that everyone in the world had seen in history books. These two both looked too modern whereas compared to the uniforms they'd worn in World War II… And what was up with the hoverboard this imposter Liberty Belle was carrying? The Liberty Belle they knew of from history was just as grounded as the real Captain America. The only times they knew of that the young sidekick was ever airborne was either when she and her mentor would skydive with other members of the American Army out of planes into battlefields, or when they'd crashed the Nazi plane called the _Valkyrie_ into that so-called ice field and not in the ocean as the world had assumed. She never rode a hoverboard, so what was this so-called child super-soldier doing with one?

Steve and Jamie disregarded their uncertain shock upon seeing them pop up from seemingly out of the blue. They didn't have time and could not allow for the police to become just as shocked as the rest of the civilian population was as to what the hell was going on. The two super-soldiers needed them to follow orders on what was to be done to stop the invasion. In particular, Steve's orders. He had been a Captain for the United States Army almost seventy years ago, after all.

"You need men in these buildings," Steve ordered the Sergeant, not even looking at the man as he pointed sharply at two skyscrapers off to the right. "There are people inside and they're going to be running right into the line of fire. You take them to the basements or through the subway. You keep them off the streets."

"And for crying out loud!" Jamie added, waving her arms around in frustration for a moment as she gave both men an annoyed look. "I understand you need to shoot down these Chitauri aliens, but stop ignoring the general population still stuck up here on the streets and evacuate them! They're all panicking! Look! Right over there!"

She paused for a moment to point her free hand at a wounded, frightened middle-aged woman. She was limping around with a bad leg and had a nasty gash against her forehead. She was holding the hand of a sobbing little girl that didn't look much older than six-years-old with one hand, and trying to calm down a screaming baby of approximately two-months-old cradled in the arm of the other.

"That woman needs help!" Jamie continued, shooting the police Sergeant a furious glare. "She has kids with her! Get the three of them out of here and into the subways, too!"

"And we need a perimeter going as far back as 39th," Steve made sure to include.

The Sergeant just glared coldly at the two imposter super-soldiers. They had no right to be ordering him around.

"Why the hell should I take orders from you two?!" he demanded.

Steve and Jamie were unable to answer the question, because a loud explosion directly behind them due to a number of abandoned cars going up in smoke followed by more of the Chitaurians flying towards them from around the corner on their strange space vehicles caused Steve to quickly to stand back up and for Jamie to stomp on the back of her board and take to the air again as they whirled around.

The Sergeant and the police private naturally backed away several feet when they saw the black-skinned humanoid aliens in their strange space battlesuits either jump down from their vehicles to attack the Dynamic Duo in hand-to-hand combat, but two of the flying machines stayed hovering in the air above them to shoot them from a distance from the safety provided by the difference in height. But Steve and Jamie did not back away as they did.

The adult and child super-soldiers were completely unfazed.

As the first aliens dropped down in front of him, Steve simply raised his shield to block an energy attack from somewhere above him, and then used it to bash the side of the nearest foe quickly before spinning around to deflect another energy ray, but this time it came from one of the grounded aliens. The alien roared in pain as his attack bounced off the shield and straight back to him, but Steve did not allow the creature time to recover. He reeled back his fist, and struck the beast right in the head. The alien fell helplessly to the ground. A third alien tried to stab Steve with his space spear from behind, but Steve caught sight of the action from the corner of his eye, and quickly whirled around and raised his shield in defense before kicking the monster square in the chest. As the Chitaurian was knocked backward from the powerful kick, Steve spun on his heel just in time to catch the fist of the final member of the ground group of aliens that had tried to punch him. Steve felt the alien struggle, but Steve did not let go of it. Instead, he raised his shield, and used the rim of it to slice its arm clean off its connecting body. The alien made what sounded like a scream of mind-numbing agony before Steve bashed it away with his shield. It fell a short distance away, knocked out cold from both the pain and being knocked in the head.

While Steve handled the grounded invaders, Jamie shot up into the sky on her board to deal with the aliens still in the air. She fired off an oversized fireball at once vehicle to buy herself a minute's worth of time as the aliens piloted the vehicle around to avoid it, and then turned her attention to the aliens in the second flying machine. As she zoomed up to it with her torch outstretched, the alien on board that was piloting attempted to stab her with its space spear. Jamie swerved her board around the entire expanse of the vehicle to both avoid the attack and make the alien dizzy. As it spun around in place to try and locate her, she promptly raised her torch and whacked it across the head as hard as she could. She heard what sounded like a sickening crack over the scream of pain from the Chitauri alien, and she could only assume she managed to crack its skull. She took advantage of its distraction from its pain, and struck it again with her torch. Too weak to do anything, it fell headfirst towards the ground, and when it landed, its limbs sprawled out in every direction as its spine snapped.

Jamie didn't focus on the creature she had doomed for death. It wasn't human in her eyes, so she felt no regret on breaking her general code of no killing. It was an evil monstrosity. She could make an exception for killing these creatures while defending New York City. Instead of focusing on that, she looked back over at the other vehicle. The alien piloting it had corrected itself, and was now attempting to fire off more beams of energy at her. Jamie leaped off her board and several feet into the air in a stationary airborne somersault to avoid the rays before landing gracefully back down on her hoverboard, spitting out several balls of fire from her torch as she descended. Unlike the first fireball she threw towards the vehicle a minute prior, she was not firing aimlessly just trying to distract the alien this time. She was aiming to make the vehicle explode from the fire.

She succeeded.

The second her feet touched the hoverboard again, the entire second space vehicle exploded in midair. Steve was unperturbed by the overhead explosion, but the Sergeant, the police private, and the rest of the police force automatically turned their heads and quickly raised their hands in an effort to shield their faces from the flying metallic debris, sparks, and infernos shooting off in every direction.

As she landed back down on the roof of the car and Steve dropped the alien arm he had cut off with his amazing shield, the Sergeant whirled around and began relaying Captain America and Liberty Belle's orders as he moved up and down between the various number of police cars so that the rest of the NYPD could hear him. They had, after all, just proven exactly why he should be following the orders they'd given him.

"I need men in those buildings! Lead the people down and away from the streets!"

"You got it, sir!" exclaimed one of the privates.

"Get some men working on evacuating the people still trapped and panicking here on the streets! You two! Go and help the injured woman over there with the girl and the baby!"

"Yes, sir!"

"Right away!"

As the police force separated to either evacuate the people still on the streets or trapped in the buildings, the Sergeant clicked a button on the walkie-talkie strapped to his shoulder, and moved it a bit closer to his mouth so he could relay the last order that Captain America and Liberty Belle had given him to the rest of the police force scattered throughout the city.

"We're going to set up a perimeter all the way down to 39th Street!"

While the police dispersed, Jamie glanced back up at Steve.

"Glad that guy listened to us after seeing that. I was about ready to yell at him about whether or not he wanted to rethink that sentiment…"

"Don't worry about attitude. We can't focus on it. We need to get back over to the others."

Jamie nodded in agreement, and she floated down off the car as Steve hopped off of it, and they began racing down the streets back toward Clint and Natasha.

If some of the Chitaurians got to close for comfort near either of them, Steve would bash them aside with his shield, and should they try zapping them at a distance with their energy based rifles, Jamie would click the special button on her torch and send enormous fireballs blazing in their direction as she zoomed past.

They were the Dynamic Duo.

The world's first superhero team.

The perfect soldiers, enhanced to physiological superiority.

The mentor, and the sidekick.

They were Captain America and Liberty Belle.

They had succeeded in the past in defending America against a release of atomic bombs on the Eastern Coast against Hydra and the Nazi army.

If they could do that, then defending the city of New York and the entire planet against the threat of the Chitaurians would be a piece of cake.

While they ran back over to where Clint and Natasha were battling the aliens, Steve and Jamie caught a glimpse of Tony flying a few blocks away. With little to no regard to his safety, he was flying right up next to the colossal space leviathan. As he darted past it, the two super-soldiers saw him release the mini-guns hidden in the shoulder region of his armor. The miniature rockets struck the frightening creature all across the face as Tony zipped further down the street before the beast could react. And react it did.

The leviathan roared in both pain and annoyance, and tried to turn itself around to chase after Tony. It was a little difficult for the whale-and-snake-like space animal to turn around considering how big and long it was and that it was sandwiched in the air over a street between two enormously tall skyscrapers, but it succeeded, its dorsal fin banging against the side of one of them as it did, causing several huge chunks of steel, concrete, and plaster to go raining from the sky and fall back down to the streets of the city. New Yorkers that hadn't been visited by the NYPD with their new orders from Captain America and Liberty Belle to get the people off the streets and into the basements and subways all screamed as they saw the debris descend, and took off running in every direction imaginable to avoid being crushed to death.

" _Well, we got its attention,"_ Steve and Jamie heard Tony mumble into their earpieces as he flew at top speed to avoid the snapping pair of jaws from the angered leviathan. _"What the hell was step two?"_

"Just keep that thing occupied for a minute," Steve answered as he and Jamie approached Clint and Natasha. "Libby and I need to focus on helping Clint and Natasha."

" _Don't steal all the thunder. I'm the life of the party, after all."_

Steve shut off the com link as he and Jamie arrived at the mini-battle between Clint and Natasha versus the Chitaurians. Despite the fact that the two master assassins had been shooting at the aliens in rapid succession with their semi-automatic handguns and arrows, they had only managed to keep the creatures from outer space away from the bus of civilians long enough for all the people trapped inside to escape. Now that the people had escaped and the aliens had breached their long-ranged defense, they were forced to fight the monsters hand-to-hand. They were both demonstrating that although they preferred long-ranged weapons, they were not useless without them.

Clint was using his bow almost like a weapon. As it was constructed from special metal from S.H.I.E.L.D. to make sure it was durable in situations like this, he could easily bash it up against the armored bodies of the aliens without fear that it would break, and as soon as the aliens went down for the count, he would slip an arrow out from his quiver and thrust it down quickly into the face of the beast. As soon as it died, he would barely have enough time to yank his weapon back out of the alien's skull and throw it back into his quiver before having to defend himself from another alien and repeat the process all over again. He only had a limited supply of arrows, after all. He had to collect them if he could.

Natasha had somehow managed to climb onto the shoulders of one the Chitaurians. As the extraterrestrial tried to shake her off, Natasha was repeated thrusting her Black Widow's Bite electroshock bracelet and knuckles down into the creature's face. As the attack brought the alien down, she backflipped off it before it completely hit the ground, seized the energy spear it had been carrying, and swung it around high over her head to both deflect the attacks of two other Chitauri aliens, as well as pummel them with both ends of it, occasionally spitting out energy beams from the energy end of it at them both, too.

As a few more of the extraterrestrials closed in around the assassin team, Steve and Jamie appeared and quickly defended them. Steve bashed his vibranium shield up against two of the Chitauri soldiers he had landed in front of, and Jamie whizzed around a few feet off the ground as she activated the flaming sword technology in her vibranium torch. As she zipped around in a circle past two Chitauri aliens, she kept her thumb pressed down firmly on the button of her torch, and made slashing motions with her hand so that the flames would burn them all across their bodies.

Although Steve and Jamie's timely arrival stopped those few warriors, more were both creeping around and climbing over the backs of cars and hurling themselves over the guarded railings of the streets to attack the heroes. They just would not stop coming.

Steve, Jamie, Clint, and Natasha all raised their weapons with the same intent in mind: Kill these alien bastards before they have the opportunity to kill anyone else.

All four moved a tad bit closer to the invaders—

Zap.

Great streams of lightning came shooting down from the sky, and there was a loud sound of crackling electricity as the lightning connected with the skin of the Chitauri aliens. As they all jostled in place for several seconds as the power of the lightning coursed through their bodies before finally falling lifelessly onto the debris covered street, Steve, Jamie, Clint, and Natasha all looked up. The Mighty Thor was dropping down rapidly from the sky, his red cloak billowing out behind him as he landed with a sturdy thump down in front of the three adults and the only child right next to an overturned car, and had his hammer Mjolnir clutched in his right hand.

"Thor!" Jamie said in greeting, quickly hopping off her hoverboard and grabbing it with her free hand before rushing up to properly see the Norse God of Thunder and Lightning.

After successfully protecting her and Natasha from Bruce when he mutated into the Hulk earlier that day during the Battle of the Helicarrier, she no longer possessed any ill will to the demi-God. True, his electricity still made her naturally wary considering what happened to her in the past, but she was willing to overlook that.

He had saved her life.

She would be forever grateful to him.

Thor looked up as she ran up to him, and despite the devastation going on around all of them, he smiled kindly in polite acknowledgment.

"The Bell of Liberty," he addressed her with a simple nod.

"Thor," said Steve, stepping forward in order to gain the God's attention. "What's the story upstairs?"

"The power surrounding the Cube is impenetrable," the Prince of Lightning said.

His words attracted the attention of Tony, and even though he was nowhere to be seen currently as he was still trying to distract the space leviathan in order to buy the others some time, they all heard his words through their earpieces.

" _Thor's right. We got to deal with these guys."_

"How do we do this?" Natasha wondered out loud as Clint took out his arrows to take stock of how many he still had left, her eyes trained on the sky as more of the Chitaurians flew past them on their space vehicles.

"By working together," Jamie answered her.

"As a team," Steve made sure to add.

"I have unfinished business with Loki," Thor growled, his eyes searching the sky for the one vehicle that was currently carrying his Frost Giant brother.

"Yeah?" Clint asked dryly, just barely glancing up at the blonde-haired Norse God from counting his arrows as he spoke. "Well, get in line."

"Hey! I'm at the front of that line!" Jamie snipped, not so much angry at him or Thor as she was at the prospect of everything Loki had done since he first arrived on Earth. "The rule is woman and children first! I owe him a good whack on the head with my torch after making me think that the Captain didn't care about me!"

"Save it," Steve ordered. He couldn't have Jamie or any of the others focusing on hurting Loki directly when what they needed to do was focus on right now was keeping the Chitauri from causing more destruction or killing other civilians. He had to step up and take charge. "Loki's going to keep this fight focused on us, and that's what we need. Without him, these things could run wild. We got Stark up top. He's going to need us to—"

There was a sudden sound of what sounded like a motorcycle from somewhere behind them, and they all turned in place. Bruce Banner was carefully driving around the debris on the street as he drove up to them on a rather rusty motorcycle. None of them knew how he managed to get such a rickety bike to work, or of how he came by a new set of clothes, but those didn't matter. What mattered was that he came; ready and willing to help them fight against Loki and the Chitauri army.

Nobody said a word to the generally quiet scientist as he shut off the motorcycle and climbed off. They all just walked up to him and nodded kindly in silent thanks for coming at all. Bruce nodded back, and then looked around himself at all the destruction and cleared his throat as he began to cringe a bit.

"So, this all seems horrible," he said as he eyed off a rather large piece of broken concrete a short distance away as he spoke.

"Not that horrible," Jamie said with a hesitant smile.

"We've seen worse," Natasha said.

"Sorry," Bruce told both of the girls.

"No, we could use a little worse," Natasha told him.

"And that was just an accident. We don't blame you," Jamie added.

"What was an accident?" Steve immediately asked, not understanding what they were talking about and instantly filled with concern for his protégé.

"It's a story for another day, Cap," Jamie told him with a wave of her hand. If she told him all about how she'd actually been in walking distance of Bruce when he first transformed into the Hulk earlier today during the Battle of the Helicarrier, he would flip, and they all needed to stay focused on the battle. She'd tell him later.

Steve still looked suspicious, but dropped the matter for the moment and instead tapped his earpiece to get Tony's attention.

"Stark, we got him."

" _Banner?"_

"Just like you said."

" _Then tell him to suit up. I'm bringing the party to you."_

Everyone looked up to the sky in time to see the mechanically iron clad flying superhero zip around the corner of a very tall skyscraper and zoom back down to be parallel with the street. He was not alone. Seconds after he made the bend, the space leviathan tore through the air around the corner of the building after him, its dorsal tail and side fin banging the side building with enough force to cause great big chunks of sharp glass shards, long pieces of steel, and heavy tons of plaster to go barreling off the side of the building, along with a thick cloud of smoke.

As the space leviathan let out a booming howl of fury as it chased after Tony, Jamie and Natasha both cringed upon seeing it descend down toward the street where the group was standing.

"I don't see how that's a party…" Natasha muttered rhetorically with a shake of her head.

"No kidding… Where's the cake and ice cream?" Jamie whispered, her eyes glued on the evil monstrous animal from the far reaches of outer space.

As the leviathan got so close to the ground it was beginning to knock cars on the street on their sides and completely overturned lampposts and uprooted trees, Bruce just smiled, and began strolling leisurely forward in the direction that the monster was flying: Directly head-on toward it.

Steve gulped. "Dr. Banner," he called out. "Now might be a really good time for you to get angry."

Without stopping his stroll forward toward the space whale, Bruce looked over his shoulder at the rest of the team minus Tony. To everyone's surprise, he was actually smiling.

"That's my secret, Captain," Bruce explained. "I'm always angry."

And with those final words, an angry look spread across his face as he turned back around to face the rapidly approaching leviathan while his skin turned a bright shade of emerald green and he grew several feet taller. His shirt tore off his body as his muscles grew in strength. The second his transformation was complete, the leviathan's jaws were in snapping distance. This was of no concern to the Hulk. The green behemoth just snarled as he reeled back one of his massive fists, and slammed it straight forward into the nose of the whale-and-snake-like beast from outer space.

The single attack from the Hulk was enough to bring the monstrosity to a crashing halt. It began flip over on its nose completely from the force of the punch, and it began to fall back first down onto the group with a loud screeching sound as part of its space armor broke away.

The grounded heroes all recoiled from instinct as they saw the beast's body come crashing down toward them, but Tony flew forward in his red and gold iron clad armor.

"Hold on!" he shouted.

He activated the repulsor beams in the palms of his hands of the suit, and fired off two beams at an exposed soft area on the falling leviathan. The effect was instantaneous. The space creature completely exploded in a gigantic fireball, and everyone had to duck for cover. Bruce was in his Hulk form and Thor was a Norse demi-God, so they were both rather resilient to the flames and did nothing more than raise their hands toward their faces to keep embers from getting into their eyes, but Clint and Natasha quickly dived behind the safety of an overturned car for cover, and Steve did not hesitate to yank Jamie toward him and force her down to the ground to hover over her body in order to protect her from the burning infernos as he quickly raised his shield to defend them both.

It was several seconds before the flames died away that Steve seemed to deem the area safe enough to allow himself and his little apprentice to stand once again.

"Thank you, Captain," Jamie told him appreciatively as she gripped her hoverboard tightly in one hand, and her torch in her other.

"You're welcome. I'll always protect you, Liberty," Steve told her with a smile.

Jamie smiled back up at him, and then they both moved to stand by the rest of the team as they gathered back-to-back in a small circle in order to look at the city in every direction.

Tony slowly landed down upon the street and kept the repulsor beams in the palms of his armored gauntlets ready to use at a second's notice.

The Hulk roared furiously and clenched his fists; ready to pummel anything that came too close to him or any other members of the team.

Clint's highly trained eyes scanned their surroundings for any sign of danger as he pulled an arrow out from his quiver and put it into position in the drawstring of his bow, ready to let it fly should something appear.

Thor growled as he raised his mighty hammer, ready to shoot forth massive amounts of dangerous lightning if one of the Chitaurians flying vehicles appear in the air above them.

Natasha looked around carefully as she began reloading the bullets in her two handguns; ready to show the world she had never been known to miss a target.

Steve kept his grip on the handle on his shield firm as he looked around, ready to be the leader of the greatest team of heroes that the Earth could offer up to defend them in this war.

Jamie clutched her little silver torch tightly in her hand as she dropped her hoverboard and stepped onto it to rise a few inches off the ground, ready to prove not only to herself, but the rest of the world, too, that she was just as capable as a superhero as the rest of the team was despite just being a small child and the youngest member of this team — biologically speaking, anyway.

They were all finally assembled together at last for the Battle of New York.

They were the Avengers.

Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

They would protect not only the city with their lives, but the very planet, too.

And if they couldn't… well, Tony had been correct for once in what he'd told Loki a little while ago.

If they couldn't protect the Earth, Loki and the rest of the Chitaurian army had better watch out.

Because they'd all work together to damn well avenge it.


End file.
